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T. aud T. Clark's Publications. 





New and Cheaper Edition of Lange’s 
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IE DEI Ope THE LORD 
JESUS CHRIST: 


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Ro. 


THE WORKS ~~ 


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AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, 


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THE ANTI-PELAGIAN WORKS OF SAINT AUGUSTINE. 


VOLUME I. 


EDINBURGH: 
T. & T. CLARK, 38, GEORGE STREEJQCHAZ 
MDOCCLXXII. 









z i 
+ LIBRARY E 


UL 


PRINTED BY MURRAY AND GIBB, 


FOR 


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LONDON, . . . . HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
DUBLIN, . . . . JOHN ROBERTSON AND CO. 


NEW YORK, . . . OC. SCRIBNER AND CO. 


THE 


ANTI-PELAGIAN WORKS 


OF 


SAINT AUGUSTINE, 


DISHOP OB HÍIPPO 


Translated bp 


PETER HOLMES, D.D., F.R.A.S., 


DOMESTIC CHAPLAIN TO THE RIGHT HON. THE COUNTESS OF ROTHES; 
AND CURATE OF PENNYCROSS, PLYMOUTH. 


VOLUME I. 


EDINBURGH: 
Tc CHARK 3c GEORGR oF REE A. 


MDCCCLXXII. 
— 


2S 


r 











DEDICATION. Sy 


eee ieee 


TO THE RIGHT REVEREND 
THE LORD BISHOP OF EXETER. 


My DEAR Lorp, 


I gladly avail myself of your permission to dedicate 
this volume to you. In the course of a professional life of 
nearly the third of a century, which has not been idly spent, 
I have never failed to find pleasure in theological pursuits. 
In the intervals of most pressing labour, these have often 
tended to refresh and comfort one’s wearied spirit. If this 
confession of my own experience should have any weight 
with any one in our sacred calling to combine the hard work 
which we owe to others while ministering to their wants, with 
“that diligent attendance to reading” which we require for 
ourselves, to inform our minds and refresh our spirits, I shall 
have accomplished my only purpose in making it. Your 
Lordship, I am sure, will entirely approve of such a combina- 
tion of employments in your clergy. I well remember your 
recommendation of theological study to us at the opening of 
Bishop Phillpott’s Library at Truro; and how you counselled 
us the more earnestly to pursue it, from the danger there is, 
in these busy times, of merging the acquisition of sacred learn- 
ing in the active labours of our holy vocation. That the 
divine blessing may crown the work which you are so dili- 
gently prosecuting in the several functions of your high office, 
is the earnest wish, my dear Lord, of your faithful servant, 


PETER HOLMES. 


MANNAMEAD, PLYMOUTH, 
March 10, 1872. 








" , 


PREFACE. 


ConTENTS.—§ 1. The Latin titles of the treatises contained in this volume; on 
the Preface of the Benedictine Edition. § 2. Notice of Pelagius and his 
opinions. § 3. Of Colestius and his doctrine, in seven propositions. § 4. 
On Augustine as compared with other doctors of the Church ; his estimate 
of Pelagius and Celestius. § 5. The different fortunes of these two men 
at first. $ 6. St. Jerome differs from St. Augustine as to the origin of 
Pelagianism ; Last and West, their doctrinal characteristics—how agree- 
ing, how varying. § 7. On the conduct of Augustine and Pelagius; par- 
tisanship of their followers and critics. § 8. Paramount influence of St. 
Augustine in ancient and modern times, and in various parts of Christen- 
dom. §9. Reason of this influence; Augustine true to Scripture and 
human experience ; in favourable contrast to Pelagius as to the scientific 
depth and accuracy of his doctrine. § 10. Rationalism and Revelation ; 
Pelagius’ views isolated and incoherent ; Augustine an excellent guide in 
Scripture knowledge. § 11. Popularity and permanence of Pelagianism ; 
consentient with man’s natural feelings ; elevating influence of Divine Grace, 
its ultimate triumph in everlasting glory. §12. Original text from which 
this translation is made ; works useful in the Pelagian controversy. 


§ I ore reader has in this volume, translated for the first 

time in English, five of the fifteen treatises of St. 
Augustine on the Pelagian heresy. They are here arranged 
in the same order (the chronological one) in which they are 
placed in the tenth volume of the Benedictine edition, and 
are therefore St. Augustine’s earliest contributions to the great 
controversy. These are their Latin titles: 


De peccatorum, meritis et remissione, et de baptismo parvulorum 
ad Marcellinum ; libri tres, scripti anno Christi 412. 
De Spiritu et. littera ad ewmdem; liber unus, scriptus sub 

finem anni 412. | 
De natura et gratia contra Pelagium, ad Timasium et 
Jacobum ; liber unus, scriptus anno Christi 415. 
4 b 


x . . PREFACE. 





De perfectione. justitie hominis; [Epistola seu] liber ad 

Eutropium et Paulum, scriptus circiter finem anni 415. 

De gestis Pelagii ad Aurelium episcopum ; liber unus, scrip- 
. tus sub initium anni 417. 


The Benedictine editors have enriched their edition with 
prefaces (“Admonitiones”) and critical and explanatory notes, 
and, above all, with the appropriate extracts from St. Augus- 
tine’s Retractations; in which we have the author's own final 
revision and correction of his works. All these have been 
reproduced in a translated form in this volume ; and they will, 
it is believed, afford the reader sufficient guidance for an in- 
telligent apprehension of at least the special arguments of 
the several treatises. The Benedictine editors, however, pre- 
fixed to this detailed information an elaborate and lengthy 
preface, in which they reviewed the general history of the 
Pelagian discussions and their authors, with especial reference 
to the part which St. Augustine played throughout it. This 
historical introduction it was at first intended to present to 
the reader in English at the head of this volume. In con- 
sideration, however, of the length of the document, we have so 
far changed our purpose as to substitute a shorter statement 
of certain facts and features of the Pelagian controversy, which 
it is hoped. may contribute to a better understanding of the 
general subject. 

§ 2. The Pelagian heresy is so designated after Pelagius, a 
British monk. (Augustine calls him Srito, so do Prosper and 
Gennadius ; by Orosius he is called Britannicus noster, and by 
Mercator described as gente Britannus. This wide epithet is 
somewhat restricted by Jerome, who says of him, Habet pro- 
geniem Scotice gentis de Britannorum vicinia ; leaving it uncer- 
. tain, however, whether he deemed Scotland his native country, 
or Ireland. His monastic character is often referred to both 
by Augustine and other writers, and Pope Zosimus describes 
him as Laicum virum ad bonam frugem longa erga Deum servi- 
tute nitentem. It is, after all, quite uncertain what part of 
“ Britain” gave him birth; among other conjectures, he has 


1 Tt is satisfactory to observe how brief and scanty are his ** Retractations” on 
the topics treated in the present volume. 


PREFACE. xl 





been made a native of Wales, attached to a monastery at 
Bangor, and gifted with the Welsh name of Morgan, of which 
his usual designation of Pelagius is supposed to be simply the 
Greek version, IIeXxayíos) It was at the beginning of the 
fifth century that he became conspicuous. He then resided at 
Rome, known by many as an honourable and earnest man, 
seeking in a corrupt age to reform the morals of society. (In 
the present volume the reader will not fail to observe the 
eulogistic language which Augustine often uses of Pelagius; 
see pages 98, 132, 134, 409.) Sundry theological treatises 
are even attributed to him; among them one On the Trinity, 
of unquestionable orthodoxy, and showing great ability. Un- 
favourable reports, however, afterwards began to be circulated, 
charging him with opening, in fact, entirely new ground in the 
fields of heresy. During the previous centuries of Christian 
opinion the speculations of active thinkers had been occu- 
pied on Theology properly so called, or the doctrine of God as 
to His nature and personal attributes, including Christology, 
which treated of Christs divine and human natures. This 
was objective divinity. With Pelagius, however, a fresh class 
of subjects was forced on men’s attention: in his peculiar 
system of doctrine he deals with what is subjective in man, 
and reviews the whole of his relation to God. His heresy 
turns mainly upon two points-Zthe assumed incorruptness of 
human nature, and the denial of all supernatural influence 
upon the human will. 

$ 9. He had an early associate in Coelestius, a native of 
Campania, according to some, or as others say, of Ireland or of 
Scotland. This man, who is said to have been highly con- 
nected, began life as an advocate, but, influenced by the advice 
and example of Pelagius, soon became a monk. He excelled 
his master in boldness and energy ; and thus early precipi- 
tated the new doctrine into a formal dogmatism, from which 
the caution and subtler management of Pelagius might have 
saved it. In the year A.D. 412 (Pelagius having just left him 
at Carthage to go to Palestine), Coelestius was accused before 
the bishop Aurelius of holding and teaching the following 
opinions : 

1. Adam was created mortal, and must have died, even if 


xil PREFACE. 





he had not sinned; 2. Adam's sin injured himself only, and 
not mankind; 3. Infants are born in the state of Adam before 
he fell; 4. Mankind neither died in Adam, nor rose again in 
Christ; 5. The Law, no less than the Gospel, brings men to 
the kingdom of heaven; 6. There were sinless men before the 
coming of Christ! What Coelestius thus boldly propounded, 
he had the courage to maintain. On his refusal to retract, he 
was excommunicated. He threatened, or perhaps actually 
though ineffectually made, an appeal to Rome, and afterwards 
quitted Carthage for Ephesus. 

$ 4. Augustine, who had for some time been occupied in 
the Donatist controversy, had as yet taken no personal part 
in the proceedings against Coelestius.: Soon, however, was his 
attention directed to the new opinions, and he wrote the first 
two treatises contained in this volume, in the year when 
Ceelestius was excommunicated. At first he treated Pelagius, 
as has been said, with deference and forbearance, hoping by 
courtesy to recall him from danger. But as the heresy 
developed, Augustine’s opposition was more directly and 
vigorously exhibited. The gospel was being fatally tampered 
with, in its essential facts of human sin and divine grace; so, 
in the fulness of his own absolute loyalty to the entire volume 
of evangelical truth, he concentrated his best efforts in oppo- 
sition to the now formidable heresy. It is perhaps not too 
much to say, that St. Augustine, the greatest doctor of the 
Catholic Church, effected his greatness mainly by his labours 
against Pelagianism. Other Christian writers besides Augus- 
tine have achieved results of decisive influence on the Church 
and its deposit of the Christian faith. St. Athanasius, “alone 
against the world,’ has often been referred to as a splendid 
instance of what constancy, aided by God's grace and a pro- 
found knowledge of theology, could accomplish ; St. Cyril of 
Alexandria, and St. Leo of Rome, might be also quoted as 
signal proofs of the efficacy of catholic truth in opposition to 
popular heresy : these men, under God, saved the Creed from 
the ravages of Arianism, and the subtler injuries of Nestorius 
and Eutyches. Then, again, in the curious learning of the 


1 Marius Mercator mentions a seventh opinion broached by Coelestius, to the 
effect that ** infants, though they be unbaptized, have everlasting life.” 








PREFACE. xiii 





primitive Ireneeus ; in the critical skill, and wide knowledge, 
and indomitable labours of Origen ; in the catechetical teach- 
ing of the elder Cyril; in the chaste descriptive power of 
Basil; in the simplicity and self-denial of Ambrose; in the 
fervid eloquence of the “ golden-mouthed” Chrysostom ; in 
the great learning of Jerome; in the scholastic accuracy of 
Damascene; and in the varied sacred gifts of other Christian 
worthies, from the impetuous Tertullian and the gentle Cyprian, 
with all the Gregories of manifold endowments, down to the 
latest period of patristic wisdom, graced by our own Anselm 
and the unrivalled preacher Bernard,—in all these converging 
lines of diverse yet compatible accomplishments, the Church 
of Christ has found, from age to age, ample reinforcements 
against the attacks of heretical hostility. And in our great 
Bishop of Hippo one may trace, operating on various occasions 
in his various works, the manifold characteristics which we 
have just enumerated of his brother saints,—with this differ- 
ence, that in no one of them are found combined the many 
traits which constitute Ais greatness. We have here to do 
only with his anti-Pelagian writings. Upon the whole, per- 
haps, these exhibit most of his wonderful resources of Chris- 
tian character. In many respects, one is reminded by him of 
the great apostle, whom he reverenced, and whose profound 
doctrines he republished and vindicated. He has himself, in 
several of his works, especially in his Confessions, admitted 
us to a view of the sharp convulsions and bitter conflicts 
through which he passed, before his regeneration, into the 
Christian life, animated by the free and sovereign grace of 
God, and adorned with his unflagging energies in works of 
faith and love. From the depths of his own consciousness he 
instinctively felt the dangers of Pelagianism, and he put forth 
his strength, as God enabled him, to meet the evil; and the 
reader has in this volume samples in great variety of the 
" earnestness of his conflict with the new heresy and its leaders. 
These leaders he has himself characterized: “ Zile [nempe 
Ceelestius| apertior, iste [scilicet Pelagius] occultior fu; alle 
pertinacior, iste mendacior ; vel certe ille liberior, hic astutior ;”* 
and illustrations of the general correctness of this estimate will 


! De Peccato originali, [xii.]18. In the second volume of this series. 


xiv PREFACE. 





be forthcoming, especially in the fourth treatise of this volume, 
where Ccelestius is dealt with, and in the fifth, which relates 
to the subterfuges and pretexts Pees by Pelagius in his 
proceedings in Palestine. 

§ 5. The difference in the characters of the two leaders in 
this heresy contributed to different results in their earlier pro- 
ceedings. We have seen the disastrous issue to Ccelestius at 
Carthage, from his outspoken and unyielding conduct. The 
more reserved Pelagius, resorting to a dexterous management 
of sundry favourable circumstances, obtained a friendly hear- 
ing on two public occasions—at Jerusalem, in the summer of 
A.D. 415, and again at the end of that year, in a council of 
fourteen bishops, at Diospolis, the ancient Lydda. In the last 
treatise of this volume, the reader has a characteristic narra- 
tive of these events from St. Augustine’s own pen. The holy 
man’s disappointment at the untoward results of these two 
inquiries is apparent; but he struggles to maintain his respect 
for the bishops concerned in the affair, and comforts himself 
and all Catholics with the assurance, which he thinks is 
warranted by the proceedings, that the acquittal obtained 
by Pelagius, through the concealment of his real opinions, 
amounted in fact to a condemnation of them. This volume 
terminates with these transactions in Palestine; so that any 
remarks on the decline and fall of Pelagianism proper must 
be postponed to a subsequent volume. 

§ 6. St. Jerome as well as St. Augustine engaged in this con- 
troversy, and experienced in the East some loss and much danger 
from the rougher followers of Pelagius! It is not without interest 
that one observes the difference of view entertained by these 
eminent men on the general question of the Pelagian heresy. 
Augustine had but an imperfect acquaintance with either the 
language or the writings of the Greek Fathers, and had treated 
the Pelagian opinions as unheard-of novelties. Jerome, how- 
ever, who had acquired a competent knowledge of the Christian 
literature of Greece during his long residence in the East, 
traced these heretical opinions to the school of Origen, for 
whose memory he entertained but scant respect. There is, no 
doubt, extravagance in Jerome’s censure, but withal a founda- 

1 See the last page of this volume. 


ENDROIT E ETT IM 





PREFACE. XV 





tion of truth. For from the beginning there was a tendency at 
least to divergent views between the Eastern and the Western 
sections of Christendom, on the relation of the human will to 
the grace of God in the matter of man's conversion and salva- 
tion. On the general question, indeed, there was always sub- 
stantial agreement in the Catholic Church ;—man, as he is 
born into the world, is not in his originally perfect state; in 
order to be able to live according to his original nature and to 
do good, he requires an inward change by the almighty power 
of God. But this general agreement did not hinder specific 
differences of opinion, which having been developed with con- 
siderable regularity, in East and West respectively, admit of 
some classification. The chief writers of the West, especially 
Tertullian and Cyprian in the third century, and Hilary of 
Poitiers and (notably) Ambrose in the fourth century, pro- 
minently state the doctrine of man’s corruption, and the con- 
sequent necessity of a change of his nature by divine grace ; 
whilst the Alexandrian Fathers (especially Clement), and other 
Orientals (for instance, Chrysostom), laid great stress upon 
human freedom, and on the indispensable co-operation of this 
freedom with the grace of God. By the fifth century these 
tendencies were ready to culminate; they were at length pre- 
cipitated to a decisive controversy. In the Pelagian system, 
the liberty which had been claimed for man was pushed to 
the heretical extreme of independence of God's help; while 
Augustine, in resisting this heresy, found it hard to keep clear 
of the other extreme, of the absorption of human responsibility 
into the divine sovereignty. Our author, no doubt, moves 
about on the confines of a deep insoluble mystery here ; but, 
upon the whole, it must be apparent to the careful reader how 
earnestly he tries to maintain and vindicate man’s responsi- 
bility even amidst the endowments of God’s grace. 

§ 7. Much has been written on the conduct of the two 
leading opponents in this controversy. Sides (as usual) have 
been taken, and extreme opinions of praise and of blame have 
been freely bestowed on both Augustine and Pelagius. It is 
impossible, even were it desirable, in this limited space to 
enter upon a question which; after all, hardly rises above the 
dignity of mere personalities. The orthodox bishop and the 


xvi PREFACE. 





heretical monk have had their share of censure as to their 
mode of conducting the controversy. Augustine has been 
taxed with intolerance, Pelagius with duplicity. We are per- 
haps not in a position to form an impartial judgment on the 
case. To begin with, the evidence comes all from one side; 
and then the critics pass their sentence according to the sug- 
gestions of modern prejudice, rather than by the test of ancient 
contemporary facts, motives, and principles of action. A good 
deal of obloquy has been cast on Augustine, as if he were re- 
sponsible for the Rescript of Honorius and its penalties ; but 
this is (to say the least) a conclusion which outruns the pre- 
mises. We need say nothing of the peril which seriously 
threatened true religion when the half-informed bishops of 
Palestine, and the vacillating Pope, all gave their hasty and ill- 
grounded approval to Pelagius, as a justification of Augustine. 
He deeply felt the seriousness of the crisis, and he unsheathed 
“the sword of the Spirit,” and dealt with it trenchant blows, 
every one of which struck home with admirable precision ; 
but itis not proved that he ever wielded the civil sword of 
pains and penalties. Of all theological writers in ancient, 
medieval, or earlier modern times, it may be fairly maintained 
that St. Augustine has shown himself the most considerate, 
courteous, and charitable towards opponents. The reader will 
trace with some interest the progress of his criticism on 
Pelagius. From the forbearance and love which he gave him 
at first, he passes slowly and painfully on to censure and 
condemnation, but only as he detects stronger and stronger 
proofs of insincerity and bad faith. | 

$ 8. But whatever estimate we may form on the score of 
their personal conduct, there can be no doubt of the bishop's 


! For some time Augustine abstained from mentioning the name of Pelagius, 
to save him as much as he could from exposure, and to avoid the irritation 
which might urge him to heresy from obstinacy. Augustine recognised fairly 
enough the motive which influenced Pelagius at first. The latter dreaded the 
Antinomianism of the day, and concentrated his teaching in a doctrine which 
was meant as a protest against it. ‘We would rather not do injustice to our 
friends," says Augustine, as he praises their ** strong and active minds ;" and 
he goes on to commend Pelagius anonymously for ‘‘the zeal which he enter- 
tains against those who find a defence for their sins in the infirmity of human 
nature.” See the third treatise of this volume, On Nature and Grace, ch. 6, 7. 





PREFACE. xvil 





superiority over the monk, when we come to gauge the value 
of their principles and doctrines, whether tested by Scripture 
or by the great facts of human nature. Concerning the test 
of Scripture, our assertion will be denied by no one. No 
ancient Christian writer approaches near St. Augustine in his 
general influence on the opinions and belief of the Catholic 
Church, in its custody and interpretation of Holy Scripture ; 
and there can be no mistake either as to the Church’s uniform 
guardianship of the Augustinian doctrine, taken as a whole, 
or as to its invariable resistance to the Pelagian system, 
whenever and however it has been reproduced in the revolu- 
tions of human thought. There cannot be found in all eccle- 
siastical history a more remarkable fact than the deference 
shown to the great Bishop of Hippo throughout Christendom, 
on all points of salient interest connected with his name. 
Whatever basis of doctrine exists in common between the 
great sections of Catholicism and Protestantism, was laid at 
first by the genius and piety of St. Augustine. In the con- 
flicts of the early centuries he was usually the champion of 
Scripture truth against dangerous errors. In the Middle Ages 
his influence was paramount with the eminent men who built 
up the scholastic system. In the modern Latin Church he 
enjoys greater consideration than either Ambrose, or Hilary, 
or Jerome, or even Gregory the Great; and lastly, and per- 
haps most strangely, he stands nearest to evangelical Protes- 
tantism, and led the van of the great movement in the six- 
teenth century, which culminated in the Reformation. How 
unique the influence which directed the minds of Anselm, and 
Bernard, and Aquinas, and Bonaventure, with no less power 
than it swayed the thoughts of Luther, and Melancthon, and 
Zuingle, and Calvin ! 

§ 9. The key to this wonderful influence is Augustine’s 
knowledge of Holy Scripture, and its profound suitableness to 
the facts and experience of our entire nature. Perhaps to no 
one, not excepting St. Paul himself, has it been ever given so 
wholly and so deeply to suffer the manifold experiences of the 
human heart, whether of sorrow and anguish from the tyranny 
of sin, or of spiritual joy from the precious consolations of the 
grace of God. Augustine speaks with authority here; he has 


xviil PREFACE. 





traversed all the ground of inspired writ, and shown us how 
true is its portraiture of man's life. And, to pass on to our 
last point, he has threaded the mazes of human conscious- 
‘ness; and in building up his doctrinal system, has been, in 
the main, as true to the philosophy of fact as he is to the 
statements of revelation. He appears in as favourable a con- 
trast. to his opponent in his philosophy as in his Scripture 
exegesis. We cannot, however, in the limits of this Preface, 
illustrate this criticism with all the adducible proofs; but we 
may quote one or two weak points which radically compromise 
Pelagius as to the scientific bearings of his doctrine. By 
science we mean accurate knowledge, which stands the test of 
the widest induction of facts. Now, it has been frequently 
remarked that Pelagius is scientifically defective in the very 
centre of his doctrine,—on the freedom of the will His 
theory, especially in the hands of his vigorous followers, 
Ceelestius and Julianus, ignored the influence of habit on 
human volition, and the development of habits from action, 
isolating human acts, making man's power of choice (his 
liberum, arbitrium) a mere natural faculty, of physical, not 
moral operation. How defective this view is,—how it im- 
poverishes the moral nature of man, strips it of the very 
elements of its composition, and drops out of consideration 
the many facts of human life, which interlace themselves in 
our experience as the very web and woof of moral virtue,—is 
manifest to the students of Aristotle and Butler? Acts are 
not mere insulated atoms, merely done, and then done with ; 
but they have a relation to the will, and an influence upon 
subsequent acts: and so acts generate habits, and habits pro- 
duce character, the formal cause of man's moral condition. 
The same defect runs through the Pelagian system. Passing 
from the subject of human freedom, and the effect of action 
upon conduct and habit, we come to Pelagius view of sin. 
According to him, Adam's transgression consisted in an isolated 


! We make this qualification, because Pelagius himself seems to have re- 
cognised to some extent the power of habit and its effect upon the will, in his 
Letter to Demetrias, 8. See Dr. Philip Schaff's History of the Christian Church, 
vol. iii. p. 804. 

? Aristotle, Ethic. Nicom. ii. 2, 8, 6; Butler, Analogy, i. 5. 


PREFACE. X1X 





act of disobedience to God’s command ; and our sin now con- 
sists in the mere repetition and imitation of his offence. 
There was no “ original sin,’ and consequently no hereditary 
guilt. Adam stood alone in his transgression, and trans- 
mitted no evil taint to his posterity, much less any tendency 
or predisposition to wrong-doing: there was no doubt a 
bad example, but against this Pelagius complacently set the 
happier examples of good and prudent men. Jsolation, then, 
is the principle of Pelagius and his school; organization is 
the principle of true philosophy, as tested by the experience 
and observation of mankind. 

S 10. We have said enough, and we hope not unfairly said 
it, to show that Pelagius was radically at fault in his deduc- 
tions, whether tested by divine revelation or human experi- 
ence. How superior to him in all essential points his great 
opponent was, wil be manifest to the reader of this volume. 
Not a statement of Scripture, nor a fact of nature, does Augus- 
tine find it necessary to soften, or repudiate, or ignore. Hence 
his writings are valuable in illustrating the harmony between 
revelation and true philosophy ; we have seen how much of 
his far-seeing and eminent knowledge was owing to his own 
deep convictions and discoveries of sin and grace; perhaps we 
shall not be wrong in saying, that even to his opponents is 
due something of his excellence. There can be no doubt that 
in Pelagius and Coelestius, and his still more able follower 
Julianus, of whom we shall hear in a future volume, he had 
very able opponents— men of earnest character, acute in ob- 
servation and reasoning, impressed with the truth of their 
convictions, and deeming it a fit occupation to rationalize the 
meaning of Scripture in its bearings on human experience. 
There is a remarkable peculiarity in this respect in the 
opinions of Pelagius. He accepted the mysteries of theology, 
properly so called, with the most exemplary orthodoxy. 
Nothing could be better than his exposition of the doctrine 
of the Holy Trinity. But again we find him hemmed in with 
a perverse isolation. The doctrine of the Trinity, according. 
to him, stands alone; it sheds no influence on man and his 
eternal interests; but in the blessed Scripture, as read by 
Augustine, there is revealed to man a most intimate relation 


XX 2». PREFACE. 
between himself and God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost, as his Creator, his Redeemer, and his Sanctifier. In 
Pelagianism, then, we see a disjointed and unconnected theory, 
—a creed which stands apart from practical life, and is not 
allowed to shape man's conduct,—a system, in short, which 
falls to pieces for want of the coherence of the true * analogy 
of the faith” which worketh by love. By exposing, there- 
fore, this incompatibility in the doctrine of his opponents, 
Augustine shows how irreconcilable are the deductions of 
their Rationalism with the statements of Revelation. But 
Rationalism is not confined to any one period. We live to 
see a bolder Rationalism, which, unlike Pelagius’, is absolutely 
uncompromising in its aims, and (as must be admitted) more 
consistent in its method. To institute the supremacy of 
Reason, it destroys more or less the mysteries of Religion. 
All the miraculous element of the gospel is discarded ; God's 
personal relation to man in the procedures of grace, and man's 
to God in the discipline of repentance, faith, and love, are 
abolished : nay, the Divine Personality itself merges into an 
impalpable, uninfluential Pantheism ; while man's individual 
responsibility is absorbed into a mythical personification of 
the race. The only sure escape from such a desolation as 
this, is to recur to the good old paths of gospel faith—“ stare 
super antiquas vias.” Our directory for life's journey through 
these is furnished to us in Holy Scripture; and if an inter- 
preter is wanted who shall be able by competent knowledge 
and ample experience to explain to us any difficulties of direc- 
tion, we know none more suited for the purpose than our St. 
Augustine. 

$ 11. But Rationalism is not always so exaggerated as 
this: in its ordinary development, indeed, it stops short of 
open warfare with Revelation, and (at whatever cost of logical 
consistency) it will accommodate its discussions to the form of 
Seripture. This adaptation gives it double force: there is its 
own intrinsic principle of uncontrolled liberty in will and 
action, and there is * the form of godliness," which has weight 
with unreflective Christians. Hence Pelagianism was un- 
doubtedly popular: it offered dignity to human nature, and 
flattered its capacity ; and this it did without virulence and 





PREFACE. XXl 





with sincerity, under the form of religion. This acquiescence 
of matter and manner gave it strength in men's sympathies, 
and has secured for it durability, seeing that there is plenty 
of it still amongst us ; as indeed there always has been, and 
ever will be, so long as the fatal ambition of Eden (Gen. iii. 
5, 6) shall seduce men into a temper of rivalry with God. 
Writers like Paley (in his Lvidences) have treated of the 
triumph of Christianity over difficulties of every kind. Of all 
the stumblingblocks to the holy religion of our blessed Saviour, 
not one has proved so influential as its doctrine of GRACE; the 
prejudice against it, by what St. Paul calls “the natural man" 
(1 Cor. i. 14), is ineradicable—and, it may be added, inevi- 
table: for in his independence and self-sufficiency he cannot 
admit that in himself he is nothing, but requires external 
help to rescue him from sin, and through imparted holiness 
to elevate him to the perfection of the blessed. How great, 
then, is the benefit which Augustine has accomplished for the 
gospel, in probing the grounds of this natural prejudice against 
it, and showing its ultimate untenableness—the moment it is 
tested on the deeper principles of the divine appreciation ! 
No, the ultimate effect of the doctrine and operation of grace 
is not to depreciate the true dignity of man. If there be the 
humbling process first, it is only that out of the humility 
should emerge the exaltation at last (1 Pet. v. 6). I know 
nothing in the whole range of practical or theoretical divinity 
more beautiful than Augustine's analysis of the procedures of 
grace, in raising man from the depths of his sinful prostration 
to the heights of his last and eternal elevation in the presence 
and fellowship of God. The most ambitious, who thinks 
“man was not made for meanness,” might be well content 
with the noble prospect. But his ambition must submit to 
the conditions ; and his capacity both for the attainment and 
the fruition of such a destiny is given to him and trained by 
God Himself. “It is so contrived,” says Augustine, “in the 
discipline of the present life, that the holy Church shall arrive 
at last at that condition of unspotted purity which all holy 
men desire; and that it may in the world to come, and in a 
state unmixed with all soil of evil men, and undisturbed by 
any law of sin resisting the law of the mind, lead the purest 


xxil PREFACE. 





life in a divine eternity. . . . Dut in whatever place and at 

what time soever the love which animates the good shall 

reach that state of absolute perfection which shall admit of no 

increase, it is certainly not ‘shed abroad in our hearts’ by 

any energies either of the nature or the volition that are 

within us, but ‘by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us’ 

(Rom. v..5), and which both helps our infirmity and co- 

operates with our strength" (On Nature and Grace, pp. 299 

and 307). 

$ 12. This translation has been made from the (Antwerp) 

Benedictine edition of the works of St. Augustine, tenth volume, 

compared with the beautiful reprint by Gaume. Although 

left to his own resources in making his version, the Translator 

has gladly availed himself of the learned aid within his reach. 

He may mention the Kirchengeschichte both of Gieseler and 

Neander [Clark's transl. vol. iv.]; Wigger's Versuch einer prag- 

matischen Darstellung des Augustinismus und Pelagianismus 

[1st part]; Shedd’s Christian Doctrine ; Cunningham’s Histo- 

vical Theology ; Short’s Bampton Lectures for 1846 [Lect. vii. ]; 
Professor Bright’s History of the Church from A.D. 313 to AD. 

451; Bishop Forbes’ Explanation of the Thirty-nine Articles 
[vol. i]; Canon Robertson’s History of the Christian Church, 

vol i pp. 376—392; and especially Professor Mozley’s 

Treatise on the Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination, ch. iii. 

iv. vi; and Dr. Philip Schaff’s excellent History of the Chris- 
tian Church | Clark, Edinburgh 1869], vol. iii. pp. 783-1028; 
of which work Dr. Dorner’s is by no means exaggerated 
commendation: “It is,” says he, “on account of the beauty 
of its descriptions, the lucid arrangement of its materials, and 
the moderation of its decisions, a very praiseworthy work” 

(Dorner's History of Protestant Theology [Clark’s translation], 
vol ii p. 449, note 2). This portion of Dr. Schaff’s work is 
an expansion of his able and interesting article on the Pelagian 
Controversy, in the American Bibliotheca Sacra of May 1848. - 


PETER HOLMES. 


CONTENTS. 


Exrract FROM AUGUSTINE'S ‘‘ RETRACTATIONS " on the De Pecca- 


torum Meritis, 


etc., 


TREATISE I. 


," ON THE Merits AND FORGIVENESS OF Sins, AND THE BAPTISM OF 


a) 


INFANTS, ; 


ExTRACT FROM ÀÁUGUSTINE'S ‘‘ RETRACTATIONS" on the De Spiritu 


et Littera, 


TREATISE II. 


ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER, e : ° 


TREATISE IIL 


DN 
On NATURE AND GRACE,— 


Introduetory Note, 


Extract from the ** Retractations,” : : 


The Treatise itself, 


TREATISE: DV 


Ox THE PERFECTION OF MAN'S RIGHTEOUSNESS, !— 


Preface to the Treatise, . ‘ : ; 


The Treatise itself, 


PAGE 


155, 156 
157-232 
233, 234 


235 
236-308 


309-312 
313-356 








————-— 


1 Or, On Man's Perfect Righteousness. 


xxiv CONTENTS. 





TREATISE V. 


Ox THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS,'— 


Preface to the Treatise, . : : : ^ 
Extract from the ** Retractations,”’ ; : - 
The Treatise itself, : : ‘ : : 


PAGE 


357-359 
360 
361-431 





1 Qr, Or the Proceedings in the case of Pelagius. 


EXTRACT FROM 
AUGUSTINES "RETRACTATIONS," 


Book IL Cnuar. 23, 
ON THE FOLLOWING TREATISE, 


“DE PECCATORUM MERITIS ET REMISSIONE” 


etaed 


A NECESSITY arose which compelled me to write against 
the new heresy of Pelagius. Our previous opposition to 
it was confined to sermons and conversations, as occasion 
suggested, and according to our respective abilities and 
duties; but it had not yet assumed the shape of a contro- 
versy in writing. Certain questions were then submitted to 
me [by our brethren] at Carthage, to which I was to send 
them back answers in writing: I accordingly wrote first of 
all three books, under the title, “De JPeccatorum Meritis et 
Jiemissione" [* On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins"] in 
which I mainly discussed the baptism of infants because of 
original sin, and the grace of God by which we are justified, 
that is, made righteous; but [I remarked] no man in this 
life can so keep the commandments which prescribe holiness 
of life, as to be beyond the necessity of using this prayer for his 
sins: “ Forgive us our trespasses."! It is in direct opposition 
to these principles that they have devised their new heresy. 
Now throughout these three books I thought it right not to 
mention any of their names, hoping and desiring that by such 
reserve they might the more readily be set right; nay more, 
in the third book (which is really a letter, but reckoned 
1 See Matt. vi. 12, 
4. A 


P. EXTRACT FROM AUGUSTINES RETRACTATIONS. 





amongst the books, because I wished to connect it with the 
two previous ones) I actually quoted Pelagius name with 
considerable commendation, because his conduct and life were 
made a good deal of by many persons; and those statements 
of his which I refuted, he had himself adduced in his writings, 
not indeed in his own name, but had quoted them as the 
words of other persons. However, when he was afterwards 
confirmed in heresy, he defended them with most persistent 
animosity. Ccelestius, indeed, a disciple of his, had already 
been excommunicated for similar opinions at Carthage, in a 
council of bishops, at which I was not present. In a certain 
passage of my second book I used these words: “ Upon some 
there will be bestowed this blessing at the last day, that they 
shall not perceive the actual suffering of death in the sudden- 
ness of the change which shall happen to them," !—reserving 
the passage for a more careful consideration of the subject; 
for they will either die, or else by a most rapid transition 
from this lfe to death, and then from death to eternal life, 
as in the twinkling of an eye, they will not undergo the 
feeling of mortality. This work of mine begins with this 
sentence: “ However absorbing and intense the anxieties and 
annoyances.” 
1 See Book ii. ch. 50. 





A TREATISE 
MERITS AND FORGIVENESS OF SINS, AND 
THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS, 


By AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, Bisuor or Hippo; 
IN THREE BOOKS, 


ADDRESSED TO MARCELLINUS, A.D. 412. 


H : DO OR ub 





H IN WHICH HE REFUTES THOSE WHO MAINTAIN, THAT ADAM MUST HAVE DIED 
EVEN IF HE HAD NEVER SINNED ; AND THAT NOTHING OF HIS SIN HAS 
E BEEN TRANSMITTED TO HIS POSTERITY BY NATURAL DESCENT. HE ALSO 
j SHOWS, THAT DEATH HAS NOT ACCRUED TO MAN BY ANY NECESSITY OF HIS 
NATURE, BUT AS THE PENALTY OF SIN ; HE THEN PROCEEDS TO PROVE THAT 
IN ADAM'S SIN HIS ENTIRE OFFSPRING IS IMPLICATED, SHOWING THAT 


Bp. INFANTS ARE BAPTIZED FOR THE EXPRESS PURPOSE OF RECEIVING THE 
REMISSION OF ORIGINAL SIN. 


Cuar. 1.—Introductory, in the shape of an inscription to his friend 
$ Marcellinus. 


OWEVER absorbing and intense the anxieties and annoy- 
ances in Ju ii and warmth of which we are engaged 

with sinful men! who forsake the law of God,—[evils] indeed 
which we may well ascribe even to the fault of the sin 
which is inherent in us all, —I am unwilling, and, to say the 
truth, unable, any longer to remain a debtor, my dearest Mar- 


1 This is probably an allusion to the Donatists, who were then fiercely assail- 
ing the Catholics. 


8 








4 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [Book L 





cellinus, to that zealous affection of yours, which only enhances 
my own grateful and pleasant estimate of yourself. l am 
under the impulse [of a twofold emotion]: on the one hand, 
there is that very love which makes us unchangeably one in 
the one hope of a change for the better; on the other hand, 
there is the fear of offending God in yourself, who has 
endowed you with so earnest a desire, in gratifying which 
I shall be only serving Him who implanted it in you. And 
so strongly has this impulse led and attracted me to solve, 
to the best of my humble ability, the questions which you 
submitted to me in writing, that my mind has gradually 
admitted this inquiry to an importance transcending that of 
all others; [and it will now give me no rest] until I accom- 
plish something, which shall make it manifest that I have 
yielded, if not a sufficient, yet at any rate an obedient, com- 
pliance with your own kind wish and the desire of those to 
whom these questions are a source of anxiety. 


Cuap. 2. [11.]—Z7f Adam had not sinned, he would never have died. 


They who say that Adam was so formed that he would 
even without any demerit of sin have died, not as the penalty 
of sin, but from the necessity of his being, endeavour indeed 
to refer that passage in the law, which says: “On the day ye 
eat thereof ye shall surely die"! not to the death of the body, 
but to that death of the soul which takes place.in sin. It is 
the unbelievers who have died this death, to whom the Lord 
pointed when He said, * Let the dead bury their dead.”* Now 
what will be their answer, when [we adduce the place where] 
we read that God, when reproving and sentencing the first 
man after his sin, said to him, “ Dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return ?"? For it was notin respect of his soul that 
he was * dust," but clearly by reason of his body, and it was by 
the death of the self-same body that he was destined to “return 
to dust" Still, although it was by reason of his body that he 
was dust,and although he bare about the natural body in 
which he was created, he would, if he had not sinned, have 
been changed into a spiritual body, and would have passed 
into the incorruptible state, which is promised to the faithful 

1 Gen. ii. 17. ? Matt. viii. 22; Luke ix. 60. 3 Gen. iii. 19. 


Li 





: r 
Rye mc Ia a at 


CHAP. II. | MORTALITY, AND SUBJECTION TO DEATH. 5 





and the saints, without the peril of death. And of this issue 
we not only are conscious in ourselves of having an earnest 
desire, but we learn it from the apostle’s intimation, when he 
says: “ For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed 


"upon with our house which is from heaven ; if so be that being 


clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this 
tabernacle do groan, being burdened; not for that we would 
be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be 
swallowed up of life"! Therefore, if Adam had not sinned, 
he would not have been divested of his body, but would have 
been clothed upon with immortality and incorruption, that his 
mortal [body] might have been absorbed by life; that is, that 
he might have passed from his natural body to the spiritual 
body. 


Cuap. 3. [111.]—Jé is one thing to be mortal, another thing to be subject to death. 


Enoch and Elijah still alive, in Paradise. 

Nor was there any reason to fear that if he had happened 
to live on here longer in his natural body, he would have been 
oppressed with old age, and have gradually, by reason of 
the senility, arrived at death. For if God granted to the 
clothes and the shoes of the Israelites that “they waxed not 
old” during forty years,? what wonder if for obedience it had 
been by the power of the same [God] allowed to man, that 
his natural and mortal body should have in it a certain condi- 
tion, in which he might grow full of years without decrepitude, 
and, whenever God pleased, pass from mortality to immortality 
without the medium of death? For even as this very flesh 
of ours, which we now possess, is not therefore invulnerable, 
because there happens to be no occasion on which it receives 
a wound; so also was it not therefore immortal, because there 
arose no necessity for its dying. Such a condition, whilst still 
in their natural and mortal body, I suppose, was granted even 
to those who were translated hence without death? ^ For 
Enoch and Elijah were not reduced to the decrepitude of old 
age by their long life. But yet I do not believe that they 
were then changed into that spiritual kind of body, such as is 
promised in the resurrection, and which the Lord was the 
first to receive; only they probably do not need those ali- 

1 2 Cor. v. 2-4. 2 Deut. xxix. 5. 3 Gen. v. 24 ; 2 Kings ii. 11. 


6 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK Lp 





ments, which by their use minister refreshment to the body ; 
ever since their translation, however, they so live, as to enjoy 
such a sufficiency as was provided during the forty days in 
which. Elijah lived on the cruse of water and the cake with- 
out substantial food ;* or else, if there be any need of such 
sustenance, they are, it may be, sustained in Paradise in some 
such way as Adam was, before he brought on himself expul- 
sion therefrom -by sinning. And he, as I suppose, was supplied 
with sustenance against decay from the fruit of the various 
trees, and from the tree of life with security against the 
decrepitude of age. | 


CnAr. 4. [1v.]—Death accrues to the body owing to sin. 

But in addition to the passage where God in punishment 
says, “Dust thou art, unto dust shalt thou return,"?— a pas- 
sage which I cannot understand how any one can apply except 
to the death of the body,—there are other testimonies likewise, 
from which it most fully appears that by reason of sin the 
human race has brought upon itself not spiritual death merely, 
but the death of the body also. The apostle says to the Romans : 
“Tf Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the 
spirit is life because of righteousness. If therefore the Spirit 
of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He 
that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall also quicken 
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you"? I 
apprehend that a sentence which is so clear and open as this 
only requires to be read and not expounded. he body, says 
he, 4s dead, not through earthly frailty, as being made of the 
dust of the ground, but because of sin ; what more do we want ? 
And he is most careful in his words: he does not say [the 
body] is mortal, but dead. 

Cnr. 5. [v.]—The words, mortale (capable of dying), mortuum (dead), and 
moriturus (likely to die) ; man’s righteousness, obedience. 

Now previous to the change into the incorruptible state 
which is promised in the resurrection of the saints, the body 
may have been mortal (capable of dying), although not likely 
to die; just as our body in its present state may, so to 
speak, be capable of sickness, although not likely to suffer 


1j Kings xix. 8, 3 Gen. iii. 19, 3 Rom. viii. 10, 11. 





CHAP. VL] WHY POSSIBLE DEATH BECAME ACTUAL. Tu. 





sickness. ^ For whose is the flesh which is incapable of sick- 
ness, even if from some accident it die before it ever ex- 
perienced an illness? In like manner was man’s body then 
mortal, but this mortality was to have been superseded by an 
eternal incorruption, if man had persevered in righteousness, 
that is to say, obedience. But mortality only itself actually 
experienced death on account of sin; for the change which is 
to take place in the resurrection will, in truth, not only not 
have death ineidental to it, which has happened through sin, 
but it will be even free from mortality, [or the very possibility 
of death,] which the natural body had before it sinned. He 
does not say: “ He that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead 
shall also quicken your dead bodies” (although he had pre- 
viously said, “the body is dead"); but his words are: “He 
shall also quicken your mortal bodies;"? so that they are not 
only no longer dead, but no longer mortal [or capable of 
dying], since the natural shall by the resurrection become 
spiritual, and this mortal body shall put on immortality, and 
mortality shall be absorbed in life. 


Cuap. 6. [vr.]—H ow it is that the body is dead because of sin. 

One wonders that anything is required clearer than the 
proof we have given. But we must perhaps be content to 
hear this clear illustration gainsaid by the position, that we 
must understand “the dead body” here? in the sense of the 
passage where it is said, * Mortify your members which are 
upon the earth."* Now it is because of righteousness and not 
because of sin that the body is in this sense mortified ; for it 
is to do the works of righteousness that we mortify our bodies 
which are upon the earth. Unless they suppose that the 
phrase, “because of sin," is added, not with the view of our 
understanding that sin has been actually committed, but in 
order that sin may not be committed—as if it were said, 
“The body indeed is dead, in order to prevent the commission 
of sin.” What then does he mean in the next clause by add- 
ing the words, “because of righteousness,” to the statement 
which he has just made, “The spirit is life? For it would 


1 Rom. viii. 10. ? Rom. viii. 11. 
3 In Rom. viii. 10. 1 Co]. iii. 5. 5 Rom. viii. 10. 


8 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. | [BOOK 5s 





have been enough simply to have mentioned the life of the 
spirit, to have secured its being understood “in order to pre- 
vent the commission of sin;" we should thus understand the 
two propositions to point to one thing—even that “the body 
is dead," and * the spirit is life," for the one common purpose 
of “ preventing the commission of sin.” So likewise if he had 
merely meant to say, “ because of righteousness,” in the sense 
of *for the purpose of doing righteousness,' the two clauses 
might possibly be referred to this one purpose—to the effect, 
that “the body is dead,” and “the spirit is life,” “for the pur- 
pose of doing righteousness.” But as the passage actually 
stands, it declares that * the body is dead because of sin,” and 
“the spirit is life because of righteousness,” attributing different 
merits to different things—the demerit of sin to the death of 
the body, and the merit of righteousness to the life of the 
spirit. Wherefore if, as no one can doubt, “ the spirit is life 
because of righteousness,” that is, by the merit, or as the 
desert, of righteousness ; how ought we, or can we, understand 
by the statement, “The body is dead because of sin,’ any- 
thing else than that the body is dead owing to the fault or 
demerit of sin, unless indeed we try to pervert or wrest the 
plainest sense of Scripture to our own arbitrary will? But 
besides this, additional light is afforded by the words which 
follow. For it is by the present tense that he defines the 
influence [of the twofold condition], when he says, that on the 
one hand “the body is dead because of sin,” since, whilst the 
body is unrenovated by the resurrection, there remains in it 
the desert of sin, that is, the necessity of dying; and on the 
other hand, that “the spirit is life because of righteousness,” 
since, notwithstanding the fact of our being still burdened 
with “the body of this death,”’ we have, by the renewal 
which is begun in our inner man, new aspirations? after the 
righteousness of faith. Yet, lest man in his ignorance should 
fail to entertain any hope of the resurrection of the body, he 
says that the very body which he had just declared to be “dead 
because of sin” in this world, will in the next world be made 
alive “because of righteousness,'C-and that not only in such 
a way as to become alive from the dead, but immortal after 
! Rom. vii. 24. ? Respiramus, 








CHAP. VII] SPIRITUAL LIFE AN EARNEST OF BODILY. 9 





its mortality, [that is to say, not only recovering from actual 
death, but becoming free from all possibility of dying.] 
Cuap. 7. [vir.]— The life of the body the object of hope, the life of the spirit 
being a prelude to it ; Adam's spirit extinct by the death of unbelief. 
Although I am much afraid that so clear a matter may 
rather be obscured by exposition, I must yet request your 
attention to the luminous statement of the apostle. “If 
Christ," says he, * be in you, the body is dead because of sin, 
but the spirit is life because of righteousness.”* Now this is 
said, that men may not suppose that they derive no benefit, 
or at best but scant benefit, from the grace of Christ, from the 
fact that they must needs die in the body. For they are 
bound to remember that, although their body still sustains | 
that desert of sin, which is irrevocably bound to the condition | 
of death, yet their spirit has already begun to live because of | 
the righteousness of faith, although it had actually become | 
extinct by the death, as it were, of unbelief. No small gift, | 
therefore, he [as good as] says, must you suppose to have been 
conferred upon you, by the circumstance that Christ is in you; 
inasmuch as in your body, which is dead because of sin, your 
spirit is even now alive because of righteousness; so that on 
this very account you should not despair of the life even of. 
your body. “For if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus 
from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from 
the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit 
that dwelleth in you"? .How is it that fumes of controversy 
still darken so clear a light? The apostle distinctly tells youj| 3- 
that although the body is dead because of sin within you,| 
yet even your mortal bodies shall be made alive because of 
righteousness, by reason of which even now your spirit is life, 
—the whole of which process is to be perfected by the grace | 
of Christ, in other words, by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. | 
Well, do men still gainsay ? He goes on to tell us how this 
comes to pass, how that life converts death into itself by 
mortifying it, [that is, that the spirit of life, by mortifying the 
body, renders it spiritual and full of life] “Therefore, bre- 
thren,” says he, ^ we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after 
the flesh ; if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die; but if ye 


! Rom. viii. 10. 2 Ver. 1l. 


10 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall 
- live. ny What else does this mean but this: If ye live the way 
of death, ye shall wholly die; but if by living the way of life 
ye mortify and slay death, ye shall wholly live ? 


Cuap. 8. [vim.] : 

When to the like purport he says: * By man came death, 
by man also came the resurrection of the dead,"? in what 
other sense can the passage be understood than of the death of 
the body; for having in view the mention of this, he pro- 
ceeded to speak of the resurrection of the body, and affirmed 
it in a most earnest and solemn discourse? In these words, 
addressed to the Corinthians: “ By man came death, and by 
man came also the resurrection of the dead ; for as in Adam 
all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive,”*—what other 
meaning is indeed conveyed than in the verse in which he 
says to the Romans, “ By one man sin entered into the world, 
and death by sin?”* Now they will have it, that the death 
here meant is the death, not of the body, but of the soul, on 
the pretence that another thing is spoken of to the Corinthians, — 
where they are quite unable to understand the death of the 
soul, because the subject there treated is the resurrection of 
the body, which is the antithesis of the death of the body. 
The reason, moreover, why only death is here mentioned as 
caused by man, and not sin also, is because the point of the 
discourse is not about righteousness, which is the antithesis of 
sin, but about the resurrection of the body, which is contrasted 
with the death of the body. 


Cuap. 9. [1x.]—Sin passes on to all men by natural descent, and not merely by 
imitation. 

You tell me in your letter, that they endeavour to twist 
into some new sense the passage of the apostle, in which he 
says: “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by 
sin ;”® yet you have not informed me what they suppose to 
be the meaning of these words. But so far as I have dis- 
covered from others, they think that the death which is here 
mentioned is not the death of the body, which they will not 


i Bon. vii. 12: $3 Gor ay. 2]. 3 T-Üor. xv. 21, 22. 
* Rom. v. 12. 5 Rom. v. 12. E 


CHAP. X.] SIN BY BIRTH, NOT BY IMITATION. 11 





allow Adam to have deserved, but that of the soul, which 
takes place in actual sin; and that this actual sin has not 
been transmitted by natural descent from the first man to 
other persons, but by imitation [of his conduct]. Hence, like- 
wise, they refuse to believe that in infants original sin is re- 
mitted through baptism, for they contend that no such original 
sin exists at all in people by their birth. But if the apostle 
had wished to assert that sin entered into the world, not by 
natural descent, but by imitation, he would have mentioned as 
the first offender, not Adam indeed, but the devil, of whom it 
is written, that “he sinneth from the beginning ;” of whom 
also we read in the Book of Wisdom: * Nevertheless through 
the devil's envy death entered into the world"? Now, foras- 
much as this death came upon men from the devil, not 
because they were propagated by him, but because they imi- 
tated his example, it is immediately added: * And they that 
do hold of his side do imitate him."? Accordingly, the apostle, 
when mentioning sin and death together, which had passed 
by natural descent from one upon all men, set him down as 
the introducer thereof from whom the propagation of the 
human race took its beginning. 

Cuap. 10.—G'race operates internally ; it is infused into infants latently in their 


baptism ; the contagion of original sin ; slowness of understanding ob- 
jected to the Catholics by the Pelagians. 


Now all they are imitators of Adam who by disobedience 
transgress the commandment of God; but [Adam considered 
as] an example to those who sin, because they choose, is one 
thing; and [the same Adam considered as] the original from 
whom all spring, with their birth in sin, is another thing. 
All His saints, indeed, imitate Christ in the pursuit of 
righteousness ; whence the same apostle, whom we have. 
already quoted, says: “ Be ye followers of me, as I am also | 
of Christ.”* But besides this imitation, His grace works | 
within us our illumination and justification, by that operation | 
concerning which the same great preacher of His [name] says: | . 
* Neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, | 
but God that giveth the increase"? For by His grace He | 

11 John iii. 8 2 Wisd. ii, 24, 8 Ver. 25. | 

* Cot, 351 * 1 Cor, ii. 7. 


12 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





engrafts into His body even baptized infants, who certainly 
have not yet become able to imitate any one. As therefore 
He, in whom all are made alive, besides offering Himself as 
an example of righteousness to those who follow Him, gives 
also to those who believe on Him the hidden grace of His 
Holy Spirit, which He secretly infuses even into infants ; so 
likewise he, in whom all die, besides being an example for 
imitation to those who wilfully transgress the commandment 
of the Lord, depraved in his own person all who come of his 
stock by the hidden corruption of his own carnal con- 
cupiscence. It is entirely on this account, and for no other 
reason, that the apostle says: “ By one man sin entered into 
the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all 
men; and in this [sin] all have sinned.”* Now if J were to 
say this, they would raise an objection, and loudly insist that 
I was incorrect both in expression and in sentiment ; for [if 
couched] in such words as these, they would attribute no im- 
portance to the opinion of an ordinary man, but in an apostle 
they simply refuse to admit such an opinion to be possible. 
Since, however, these are actually the words of the apostle, to 
whose authority and doctrine they submit, they charge us with 
slowness of understanding, while they endeavour to wrest to 
some unintelligible sense words which were written in a clear 
X "and obvious purport. “ By one man," says he, “sin entered 
into the world, and death by sin." This indicates propagation, 
not imitation ; for if imitation were meant, he would mention 
the devil as the object of the imitation. But, as no one 
| doubts, [the apostle] refers to that first man who is called 

| Adam: “ And so,” says he, “ death passed upon all men." 


| Car. 11. [x.]— Distinction between actual and original sin. In Adam we were 
all one man.? In Christ alone are we justified. 

Again, in the clause which follows, “And in this [sin]? all 

have sinned,” how cautiously, rightly, and unambiguously is 

the statement expressed! For if you understand that sin to 


be meant which by one man entered into the world, and in 


; ! Rom. v. 12: 
? See below, Book 11r. c. vii. ; also in the De Nuptiis, c. v. ; also Epist. 186, 
aud Serm. 165. 
3 Such is Augustine's reading ; but see below. 


CHAP. XII. ORIGINAL SIN; ACTUAL SIN. | 13 





which all have sinned, it is surely clear enough, that the sins 
which are peculiar to every man, which they themselves com- 
mit and which belong simply to them, mean one thing; and 
that the one sin, in and by which all have sinned, means 
another thing, since all were included in that one [primeval] 
man. If, however, it be not the sin, but this first man that is 
understood [in this clause, so that it be read] * in whom" 
[not, n which] “all have sinned,” what again can be plainer 
than even this clear statement ? We read, indeed, of those 
being justified in Christ who believe in Him, by reason of the 
secret communion and inspiration of that spiritual grace which 
makes every one who cleaves to the Lord * one spirit" with 
Him, although His saints also follow His example; can I 
find, however, any similar statement made of those, who have. 
followed in the steps of His saints? Can any man be said 
to be justified in Paul or in Peter, or in any one whatever of 
those excellent men whose authority stands high among the 
people of God? We are no doubt said to be blessed in 
Abraham, according to the passage in which the words are 
addressed to him, “In thee shall all nations be blessed "?— 
for Christ's sake, who is his seed according to the flesh ; which 
is still more clearly expressed in the parallel passage: “In 
thy seed shall all nations be blessed." I do not believe that 
any one can find it anywhere stated in the Holy Scriptures, 
that a man has ever sinned or still sins “ in the devil,” although 
all wicked and impious men “ imitate" him. The apostle, - 
however, has declared concerning the first man, that “in him 
all have sinned ;"? but notwithstanding there is still a contest 
about the propagation of sin; and men oppose to it I know 
not what nebulous theory of “ imitation."* 


Cua». 12.—The law could not take away sin. 
Observe also what follows. Having said that “all have 


zo EC oA 

? Gal. iii. 8 ; comp. Gen. xii. 3, xviii. 18, xxii. 18. 

3 Rom. v. 12. 

4 This was the Pelagian term, expressive of their dogma that original sin stands 
in the following [or imitation] of Adam, instead of being the fault and corruption 
of the nature of every man who is naturally engendered of Adam's offspring ; 
which doctrine is expressed by Augustine's word, propagatio. 


14 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





sinned in it [or, in him]" he at once added, “For until the 
law, sin was in the world"! This means that sin could not 
be taken away even by the law, which entered that sin might 
the more abound? whether it be the law of nature, under 
which every man when arrived at years of discretion only 
proceeds to add his own sins to original sin, or that very law 
which Moses gave to the people. “For if there had been a 
law given which could have given life, verily righteousness 
should have been by the law. But the Scripture hath con- 
cluded all under sin, that the promise of Jesus Christ might 
be given to them that believe? But sin is not imputed where 
there is no law. * Now what means the phrase *4s not 4m- 
puted,’ but “ts dgnored, or “ts not reckoned as sin?” Al- 
though the Lord God does not Himself regard it, as if it had 
never been, since it is written: “As many as have sinned 
without law shall also perish without law."? 


Cuap. 13. [x1.]—Meaning of the apostle's phrase ** the reign of death." The 
saints of old had no relation to the letter of the law, but to the grace of 
Christ who was to come. 

“ Nevertheless,” says he, “death reigned from Adam even: 
unto Moses,"*— that is to Say from the first man even to the 
very law which was promuldái^by the divine authority, be- 
cause even it was unable to abolish the reign of death. Now 
death must be understood “to reign,” UR the guilt of 
sin’ so dominates in men that it prevents their attainment 
of that eternal life which is the only true life, and drags 
them down even to the second death which is penally eternal. 
This reign of death is only destroyed in any man by the 
Saviours grace, which wrought even in the saints of the 
olden time, all of whom, though previous to the coming of 
Christ in the flesh, yet lived in Sto to His assisting grace, 
not to the letter of the law, which only knew how to com- 
mand, but not to help them. In the Old Testament, indeed, 
that was hidden (owing to the perfectly just dispensation of 
that period) which is now revealed in the New Testament. 
Therefore “death reigned from Adam unto Moses," in all 

1 Rom. v. 13. ? Rom. v. 20. 5. Gal. 11,21, 99. 


4 Rom. v. 18. 5 Rom. ii, 12. 6 Rom. v. 14. 
7 Reatus peccati, 





CHAP. XIV.] THE REIGN OF DEATH. 15 





who were not assisted by the grace of Christ, that in them 
the kingdom of death might be destroyed. “ Even in those 
who had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgres- 
sion,"! [continues the apostle, meaning] those who had not 
sinned of their own individual will, as Adam did, but had 
drawn from him the original sin; “who is the figure of him 
that was to come," ?* because in him was constituted the form 
of condemnation to his future progeny, who should spring 
from him by natural descent; so that from him alone all men 
were born to a condemnation, from which there is no deliverance 
but in the Saviours grace. I am quite aware, indeed, that 
several Latin copies of the Scriptures read the passage thus: — 
* Death reigned from Adam to Moses over them who have 
sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression;"? but 
even this version is referred by those who so read it to the 
very same purport, for they understand those who have sinned 
in him to have sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans- 
gression ; so that they are created in his likeness, not only as 
men born of his manhood, but as sinners born of a sinner, 
destined to die as he was doomed to die, and under condem- 
nation because he was under condemnation. However, the 
Greek copies from which the Latin version was made, have 
all, without exception or nearly so, the reading which I first 
adduced. 
Cnar. 14. 

* But," says he, “not as the offence so also is the free gift. 
For if, through the offence of one, many be dead, much more 
the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by One Man, 
Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.”* [Much more, are 
his words,| not many more, as to prevalence of number, for, 
there are not more persons justified than condemned; but it 
runs, hath much more abounded ; inasmuch as, while Adam 
produced sinners from his one sin, Christ has by His grace 
procured free forgiveness even for the sins which men have 
of their own accord added by actual transgression to the 
original sin in which they were born. This he states more 
clearly still in the sequel. 


1 Rom. v. 14. _ 2 Rom. v. 14. 
3 Comp. Zpist. 157, n. 19. * tom. v. 15. 


16 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK IL. 





Cuap. 15. [xir.]— The one sin common to all men. Original sin suffices for 
condemnation. Degrees of condemnation. 


But observe more attentively what he says, that “through 
the offence of one, many are dead." For why should it be on 
account of the sin of one, and not rather on account of their 
own sins [that many are dead], if this passage is to be under- 
stood as supporting the principle of imtation, and not com- 
munication by natwral descent? But mark what follows: 
“And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for 
the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift 
is of many offences unto justification." ! Now let them tell 
us, where there is room in these words for the principle of 
imitation. “By one, says he, “to condemnation.” By one 
what, but one sin? This much, indeed, he clearly implies in 
the words which he adds: “ But the free gift [or the grace] is 
of many offences unto justification.” Why, indeed, is the 
judgment from one offence to condemnation, and the grace 
from many offences to justification? If original sin is a 
nullity, would it not follow, not only that grace withdraws 
men from many offences to justification, but that judgment 
leads them to condemnation [not from one sin merely, but] 
from many offences likewise? For assuredly grace does not 
condone many offences, without judgment in like manner 
having many offences to condemn. — Else, if men are involved 
in condemnation because of one offence, on the ground that 
all the offences which are condemned were committed in 
imitation of that one offence, there is the same reason why 
men should also be regarded as withdrawn from one offence 
unto justifieation, inasmuch as all the offences which are re- 
mitted to the justified were committed in imitation of that 
one offence. But this most certainly was not the apostle's 
meaning, when he said: * The judgment, indeed, was from 
one offence unto condemnation, but the grace was from many 
offences unto justification.” We on our side, indeed, can 
understand the apostle, and see that judgment is predicated of 
one offence unto condemnation entirely on the ground that, 
even if there were in men nothing but original sin, it would 
be sufficient for their condemnation. For however much 

1 Rom. v. 16. 


CHAP. XVII.] OUR RELATION TO ADAM'S SIN. T 





heavier will be their condemnation who have added their own 
sins to the original offence (and it will be the more severe in 
individual cases, in proportion to the sins of individuals) ; still, 
even that sin alone which was originally derived unto men 
not only excludes from the kingdom of God, which infants are 
unable to enter (as they themselves allow), unless they have 
received the grace of Christ before they die, but also alienates 
from salvation and everlasting life, which cannot be anything 
else than the kingdom of God, to which fellowship with Christ 
alone introduces us. 


Cuap. 16. [xir.] 


And from this we gather that we have derived from Adam, 
in whom all have sinned, not all our actual sins, but only 
original sin; whereas from Christ, in whom we are all justi- 
fied, we obtain the remission not merely of that original sin, 
but of the rest of our sins also, which we have added by our 
actual transgression. Hence it runs: “ Not as by the one 
that sinned, so also is the free gift.” For the judgment, to be 
sure, unless remitted, is from one sin—and that the original 
sin—capable of drawing us into condemnation; whilst grace 
conducts us to justification from the remission of many sins,— 
that is to say, not simply from the original sin, but from all 
others also whatsoever. 

Cuap. 17. 

* For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much 
more they which receive abundance of grace and of righteous- 
ness shall reign in life by one, even Jesus Christ.”* Why 
did death reign owing to the sin of one, unless it was that 
men were bound by the chain of death in that one man in 
whom all men sinned, even though they added no sins of their 
own? Otherwise it was not owing to the sin of one that death 
reigned through one; rather it was owing to the manifold 
offences of many, [operating] through each individual offender. 
For if the reason why men have died for the delinquency 
of another be, that they have followed and imitated him as 
their predecessor in delinquency, it must even result, and that 
with much greater propriety, that he died for the offence of 

1 Rom. v. 17. 
4 B 


18 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





one, whom the devil by his pre-eminent influence so wrought 
on as to induce him to commit the offence. Adam, however, 
used no influence to persuade his followers; and the many 
who are said to have imitated him have, in fact, either not 
heard of his existence at all or of his having committed any 
such sin as is ascribed to him, or [if they have heard of the 
history] simply refuse to believe it. How much more correct, 
therefore, as I have already remarked,’ would the apostle have 
been in setting forth the devil as the first [offender] and 
telling us that sin and death had passed from him only upon 
us all, if he had in this passage meant to speak of imitation 
and not of propagation? For there is much stronger reason 
for saying that Adam is an imitator of the devil, since he 
had in Aim an actual instigator to sin; if, [as it would seem], 
one may be an imitator even of him who has never used 
any particular persuasion of such a kind, or of whom he is 
absolutely ignorant. But what is implied in the clause, 
“They which receive abundance of grace and righteousness,” 
but that the grace of remission is given not only to that sin 
in which all have sinned, but to those offences likewise which 
men have actually committed besides; and that on those 
[happy recipients of the grace] so great a righteousness is 
freely bestowed, that, although Adam gave way to him who 
persuaded him to sin, they at any rate yield not even to the 
coercion of the same tempter? Again, what mean the words, 
“Much more shall they reign in life,” when the fact is, that 
the reign of death drags much the more down to eternal 
punishment, unless we understand those to be really men- 
tioned in both clauses, who pass from Adam to Christ, in 
other words, from death to life; because in the life eternal 
they shall reign without end, and thus exceed the reign of 
death which has prevailed within them only temporarily and 
with a termination ? 
Cuap. 18. 

* Therefore as by the offence of one [judgment came] upon 
all men to condemnation, even so by the justification of One 
[the free gift came] upon all men unto justification of life."? 
This “ offence of one," if we are bent on [the theory of] 

1 See above, ch. 9. ? Rom. v. 18. 





CHAP. XIX.] OUR JUSTIFICATION BY CHRIST. 19 





jimitation, can only be the devil’s offence. Since, however, it 
is clearly mentioned in reference to Adam and not the devil, 
it follows that we have no other alternative than to understand 
the principle of natural propagation, and not that of imitation, 
to be here implied. [xiv.] Now when he says in reference to 
Christ, * By the justification of one,” he has more expressly 
stated our doctrine than if he were to say, “ By the righteousness 
of one ;” inasmuch as he mentions that justification whereby 
Christ justifies the ungodly, and which he did not propose as 
an object of imitation, for He alone is capable of effecting 
this. Now it was quite competent for the apostle to say, and 
to say rightly: “ Be ye followers and imitators of me, as I 
also am of Christ ;”* but he could never say: Be ye justified 
by me, as I also am by Christ ;—since there may be, and 
indeed actually are and have been, many righteous men, and 
worthy of imitation; whereas none is righteous, and at the 
| same time conferring justification, but Christ alone. Whence 

It is said: * To the man that believeth on Him that justifieth 

the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness."?. Now if 

any man had it in his power confidently to declare, “I justify 

you," it would necessarily follow that he could also say, 

* Believe in me" But it has never been in the power of 

any of the saints of God to say this except the King of 

saints? who said: “Ye believe in God, believe also in me ;"* 
so that, inasmuch as He justifies the ungodly, to the man who 
believes in Him in that capacity his faith is imputed for 
righteousness. 

Cuap. 19. [xv. ]—Sin is from natural descent, as righteousness is from regenera- 
tion ; how ** ALL" are sinners through Adam, and ** ALL" are just through 
Christ. 

Now if it is imitation only that makes men sinners through 
Adam, why does not imitation likewise alone make men right- 
eous through Christ? “For,” he says, “as by the offence of 
one [judgment came] upon all men to condemnation ; even 
so by the justification of one [the free gift came] upon all men 
unto justification of life"? [On the theory of imitation], then, 
those who are in this passage antithetically mentioned as the 


11 Cor. iv. 16. 2 Nom. iv. 5. 3 Sanctus sanctorum. 
* John xiv. 1. 5 ]iom. v. 18. 


20 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I 





“one” and the “ one,’ must not be regarded as Adam and 
Christ, but Adam and Abel. For although many sinners have 
preceded us in the time of this present life, and have been 
imitated in their sin by those who have sinned at a later date, 
yet they will have it, that only Adam is mentioned as he in 
whom all have sinned by following his example, on the ground 
that he was the very first man who sinned. And on the 
same principle, Abel ought certainly to have been mentioned, 
as he in whom alone all men likewise are justified by imi- 
tation of his good example, inasmuch as he was himself the 
first man who lived a holy life. If, however, it be thought 
necessary to take into the account some critical period having 
relation to the beginning of the New Testament, and Christ 
be taken as the leader of the righteous and the object of their 
imitation, then Judas, who betrayed Him, ought to be set 
down as the leader of the class of sinners. Moreover, if 
—» Christ alone is He in whom all men are justified, on the ground 
that it is not simply the imitation of His example which makes 
men just, but His grace which regenerates men by the Spirit, 
then also Adam is the only one in whom all have sinned, on 
the ground that it is not the mere following of his evil example 
that makes men sinners, but the penalty which generates 
through the flesh. Hence the terms “ all men” and * all 
men, [used by the apostle in his antithetical clauses] For 
not they who are generated through Adam are actually the 
very same as those who are regenerated through Christ; but 
yet the language of the apostle is strictly correct, because as 
none partakes of carnal generation except through Adam, so 
no one shares in the spiritual except through Christ. For if 
any could be generated in the flesh, yet not by Adam; and if 
in like manner any eould be generated in the Spirit, and not 
by Christ; clearly “ail” could not be spoken of either in the 
one class or in the other. But these “all”? the apostle after- 
wards describes as * many ;"? for obviously, under certain 
cireumstances, the *all" may be but a few. The carnal gene- 
ration, however, embraces * many,” and the spiritual generation 
also includes “ many ;” although the * many” of the spiritual 
are less numerous than the “ many” of the carnal. But as 
1 The word is ** all” in ver. 18. ? See ver. 19. 


CHAP. XXI.] NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL BIRTH. 21 





the one embraces a// men whatever, so the other includes all 
righteous men ; because as in the former case none can be a 
man without the carnal generation, so in the other class no 
one can be a righteous man without the spiritual generation ; 
in both instances, therefore, there are “many :" “ For as by 
the disobedience of one man many were made sinners, so by 
the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." ! 


Cuap. 20.—Original sin alone is contracted by natural birth. 


* Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound."? 
This addition to original sin men now made of their own wil- 
fulness, not through Adam ; but even this is done away and 
remedied by Christ, because “ where sin abounded, grace did 
much more abound ; that as sin hath reigned unto death"*— 
even that sin which men have not derived from Adam, but 
have added of their own accord—* even so might grace reign 
through righteousness unto eternal life."* There is, however, 
no righteousness except through Christ, as there are no sins 
except through Adam. Therefore, after saying, * As sin hath 
reigned unto death," he did not add in the same clause “ by 
one, or “ by Adam,’ because he had already spoken of that 
sin which was abounding when the law entered, and which, 
of course, was not original sin, but the sin of man’s own 
wilful commission. But [here the case is different ; for] after 
he has said: “ Even so might grace also reign through right- 
eousness unto eternal life,” he at once adds, “ through Jesus 
Christ our Lord ;'* because, whilst by carnal generation only 
original sin is contracted, yet by spiritual regeneration there 
is effected the remission not of original sin only, but also of 
the sins of man’s own voluntary and actual commission. 


Cuap. 21. [xvi.]—Unbaptized infants damned, but in a most modified way ; 9 
the penalty of Adam’s sin, the grace of his body lost. 


It may therefore be correctly affirmed, that such infants as 
quit the body without being baptized will be involved in con- 
demnation, but of the mildest character. That person, there- 
fore, greatly deceives both himself and others, who teaches 


1 Rom. v. 19. ? Rom. v. 20. * Rom. v. 21. 
* Rom. v. Sh. 5 Rom. v. 21. 
$ See Augustine’s Enchiridion, c. 93, and Contra Julianum, v. 11. 


22 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I 





that they will not be involved in condemnation ; whereas the 
apostle says: “Judgment [hath arisen] from one offence to 
condemnation ;”* and again a little after: “By the offence 
of one [judgment came] upon all persons to condemnation.” ? 
When, indeed, Adam sinned by not obeying, God, then his 
body—although it was a natural and mortal body—lost the 
grace whereby it used in every part of it to be obedient to 
the soul. Then there arose in men affections common to the 
brutes which are productive of shame, and which made man 
ashamed of his own nakedness.’ Then also, by a certain mor- 
bid condition which was conceived in men from a suddenly 
injected and pestilential corruption, it was brought about that 
they lost that firmness of life in which they were created, and, 
by reason of the mutations which they experienced in the 
stages of life, issued at last in death. However many were 
the years they lived in their subsequent life, yet they began 
to die on the day when they received the law of death, he 
cause they kept verging towards old age. For that possesses 
not even a moment’s stability, but glides away without respite 
or recovery, which by constant change perceptibly advances to 
an end which does not produce perfection, but utter exhaus- 
tion. Thus, then, was fulfilled what God had spoken: “In 
the day that ye eat thereof, ye shall surely die.”* Ag a con- 
sequence, then, of this disobedience of the flesh and this law 
of sin and death, whoever is born of the flesh has need of 
spiritual regeneration—not only that he may reach the king- 
dom of God, but even that he may be freed from the damna- 
tion of sin. Hence [arise the two opposite conditions]; men 
are on the one hand born in the flesh liable to sin and death 
from the first Adam, and on the other hand are born again 
in baptism associated with the righteousness and eternal ie 
of the second Adam; even as it is written in the book of 
Ecclesiasticus: “ Of the woman came the beginning of sin, 
and through her we all die"? Now whether it bs said of 
the woman or of the man, both statements pertain to the first 
man; since (as we know) the woman is of the man, and the 
two are one flesh. Whence also it is written: “And they 


1 Rom. v. 16. ? Ver. 18. 3 Gen. iii. 10. 
4 Gen. ii. 17. $ Ecclus. xxv. 24. 


CHAP. XXIII.] . INFANTS BORN IN SIN. 23 





twain shall be one flesh ; wherefore," the Lord says, * they are 
no more twain, but one flesh.” ! 
CuHapP. 22. [xvn.]— T'o infants personal sin cannot be attributed. | 
They, therefore, who say that the reason why infants are 
baptized, is, that they may have the remission of the sin 
which they have themselves committed in their life, not what 
they have derived from Adam, may be refuted without much 
difficulty. For whenever these persons shall have reflected 
within themselves a little, uninfluenced by any polemical 
spirit, on the absurdity of their statement, how unworthy it 
is, in fact, of serious discussion, they will at once change their 
opinion, But if they will not do this, we shall not so com- 
pletely despair of men’s common sense, as to have any fears . 
that they will induce others to adopt their views. They are 
themselves driven to adopt their opinion, if I am not mis- 
taken, by their prejudice for some other theory; and therefore, 
feeling themselves obliged to confess that sins are remitted to 
the baptized, and being unwilling to allow that the sin was 
derived from Adam which they admit to be remitted to in- 
fants, they were obliged to charge infancy itself with actual 
sin; as if by bringing this charge against infancy a man 
could become the more safe himself, when accused and unable 
to answer his assailant! However, let us, as I suggested, pass 
by such opponents as these; indeed, we require neither words 
nor quotations of Scripture to prove the sinlessness of infants, 
so far as their conduct in life is concerned; this life they 
spend, such is the recency of their birth, within their very 
selves, since it escapes the cognizance of human perception, 
which has no data or support whereon to sustain any contro- 
versy on the subject. 

Cuap. 23. [xvirr. ]—4Z7e refutes those who allege that infants are baptized not 
Jor the remission of sins, but for the obtaining of the kingdom of heaven.” 
But those persons raise a question, and appear to adduce 

an argument deserving of consideration and discussion, who 
say that new-born infants receive baptism not for the remis- 
sion of sin, but that they may have a spiritual creation? and 


+ Malt. xix. 5, 6. 
? See below, c. 26 ; also De Peccato orig. c. 19-94 ; also Serm. 294. 
5 We adopt this reading after three Mss., but the Benedictine text has ** non 


24. ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I 





be born again in Christ, and become partakers even of the 
kingdom of heaven, and by the same means children and 
heirs of God, and joint-heirs of Christ. And yet, when you 
ask them, whether, if [infants are] not baptized, and are not 
made joint-heirs with Christ and partakers of the kingdom of 


heaven, they have at any rate the blessing of eternal life in 
,' Y the resurrection of the dead, they are extremely perplexed, 


and find no way out of their difficulty. For what Christian 
is there who would allow it to be said, that any one could 
attain to eternal salvation without being born again in Christ, 
—[a result] which He meant to be effected through baptism, at 
the very time when such a sacrament was purposely instituted 
for men being regenerated with a view to eternal salvation ? 
Whence the apostle says: “Not by works of righteousness 
which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us 
by the laver! of regeneration."? This salvation, however, ac- 
cording to him, consists in hope, while we live here below. 
He says, “ For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is 
not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? 
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience 
wait for it"? Who then could be so bold as to affirm, that 
without the regeneration of which the apostle speaks, infants 
could attain to eternal salvation, as if Christ died not for 
them? For “ Christ died for the ungodly.”* As for them, 
however, who (as is manifest) never did an ungodly act in all 
their life, if also they are not bound by any bond of sin in 
their original nature, how did He die for them, who died for 
the ungodly? If they were hurt by no malady of original sin, 
how is it they are carried to the Physician Christ, for the 
express purpose of receiving the sacrament of eternal salva- 
tion, by the pious anxiety of those who run to Him? Why 
rather is it not said to them in the Church: Take hence these 
innocents: “they that are whole need not a physician, but 
they that are sick ;’——Christ “came not to call the righteous, 
but sinners to repentance ?"? There never has been heard, 


habentes,” etc.; which means, ‘‘that they may be created in Christ, not having 
the spiritual procreation,” whatever that may mean. 

1 Lavacrum. * DU nm.-5, 3 Rom. viii. 24, 25. 

* Rom. v. 6. $ Luke v. 31, 22. 





CHAP. XXIV.] THEIR REGENERATION. 25 





there never is heard, there never will be heard in the Church, 
such a fiction concerning Christ. 


Cuap. 24. [x1x.] 


And let no one suppose that infants ought to be brought 
to baptism, because, as they are not sinners, so they are not 
righteous ; how then do some remind us of the Lord's saying, 
* Suffer the little children to come unte me, and forbid them 
not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven;"! and hold that 
the Lord thus commends this tender age as meritorious? For 
if this is not said of infants because of their resemblance to 
the grace of humility (since humility makes [us] infants), but 
from the meritoriousness of the life of children, then of course 
infants must be righteous persons; otherwise, it could not be 
correctly said, * Of such is the kingdom of heaven," for heaven 
can only belong to the righteous. But probably, after all, it 
is not a right opinion of the meaning of the Lord's words, to 
make Him commend the life of infants when He says, “ Of 
such is the kingdom of heaven;" inasmuch as that may be 
their true sense, which makes Christ adduce the tender age of 
infancy as a likeness of humility. Well, then, perhaps we 
must revert to the tenet which I mentioned just now, that 
infants ought to be baptized, because, although they are not 
sinners, they are yet not righteous. But it would seem as if 
there were an answer to this view, in the words of Christ: 
“T came not to call the righteous" Whom then, [O Lord,] 
didst Thou come to call? He immediately goes on to say: 
* —but sinners to repentance.” Therefore it follows, that, 
however righteous they may be, if also they are not sinners, 
He came not to call them, who said of Himself: “I came not 
to call the righteous, but sinners.” They therefore seem, not 
vainly only, but even wickedly to rush to His baptism, who 
does not invite them,—an opinion, which God forbid that 
we should entertain. He calls them, then, as a Physician who 
is not wanted for those that are whole, but for those that are 
sick; and who came not to call the righteous, but sinners to 
repentance. Now, inasmuch as infants are not held bound by 
any sins of their own actual life, it is the guilt of original sin 

! Matt. xix. 14. | 


26 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





which is healed i in them by the grace of Him who saves them 
by the laver of regeneration. 


Cuap. 25.—Infants are described as believers and as penitents. Sins alone 
separate between God and men. 


Some one will say: How then are mere infants called 
to repentance? Is it possible for them at so tender an age 
to have anything to repent of? The answer to this is: If 
they must not be called penitents on the ground of their not 
having the experience of one that repents, neither must they 
| be called believers, because they likewise have not the faculty 
of believing. But if they are rightly called believers,’ because 
they in a certain sense profess faith by the words of those 
who bring them to baptism, why are they not also held to 
possess the previous grace of repentance, when they are proved 
to renounce the world and the devil by the profession again of 
those who bring them to the font? The whole of this is done 
which the Lord has I upon the Church. But SA who 
knows -not that the baptized infant fails to be [ultimately] 
benefited from what he received as a little child, if on coming 
to years of reason he fails to believe and to abstain from un- 
lawful desires? If, however, the infant departs from the 
present life after he has received baptism, the guilt in which 
he was involved by original sin being [thereby] done away, he 
shall be made perfect in that light of truth, which, as it remains 
unchangeable for evermore, illumines the justified in the 
presence of their Maker. For it is only sins which separate 
between men and God; and these are done away by Christ's 
grace, through whose mediation we are reconciled, when He 
justifies the eed, 

Cuap. 26. [xx. ]J—No one, except he be baptized, rightly comes to the table of 
the Lord. 

Now they take alarm from the statement of the Lord, when 
He says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the 
kingdom of God;"? because in His own explanation of the 
passage He affirms, “ Except a man be born of water and of 
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"? And 


1 See below, e. 26 and 40 ; also Book iii. c. 2; also Epist. 98, and Serm. 294. 
? John iii. 3. TV erro; 





CHAP. XXVIL] ORIGINAL SIN AND THE TWO SACRAMENTS. 27 





so they try to ascribe to unbaptized infants, by the merit of 
their innocence, the gift of salvation and eternal life, but at 
the same time, owing to their being unbaptized, to exclude them 
from the kingdom of heaven: But how novel and astonishing 
is such an assumption, as if there could possibly be salvation 
and eternal life without heirship with Christ, [and] without the 
kingdom of heaven! Of course they have their refuge, whither 
to escape and hide themselves, because the Lord does not say, 
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot 
have life, but—“ he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” If 
indeed He had said that, there could have risen not a moment’s 
doubt. Well, then, let us remove the doubt [which they im- 
port]; let us now listen to the Lord, and not to men’s notions 
and conjectures. Let us, I say, hear what the Lord says— 
not indeed concerning the sacrament of baptism, but concern- 
ing the sacrament of His own holy table, to which none but 
a baptized person has a right to approach: “Except ye eat 
my flesh and drink my blood, ye shall have no life in you."! 
What do we want more? What answer to this can be 
. adduced, unless it be by that obstinacy which ever resists the 
constancy of manifest truth ? 


CHAP. 27, 

Will, however, any man be so bold as to say that this state- 
ment [of the Lord’s] has no relation to infants, and that they 
can have life in them without partaking of His body and 
blood—on the ground that He does not say, Except a man eat 
(as in the phrase about baptism, “Except a man be born 
again"), but “ Except ye eat ;” as if He were addressing those 
who were able to hear and to understand, which of course infants 
cannot do? But the man who says this is inattentive [to the 
circumstances of the case]; because, unless al] are embraced 
in the statement, that without the body and the blood of the 
Son of man men cannot have life, it is to no purpose that the 
elder age has this provision. For if you attend to the mere 
words, and not to the meaning, of the Lord as He speaks, this 
passage may very well seem to have been spoken merely to the 
people whom He happened at the moment to be addressing; 

! John vi. 53. j 


28 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





because He does not say [in a general phrase], Unless any man 
eat; but [personally], Except ye eat. What also becomes of 
the statement which He makes in the same context on this 
very point: “The bread that I will give is my flesh, which I 
will give for the life of the world?”* For, according to this 
statement, we find that that sacrament pertains virtually to 
ourselves, who were not in existence at the time the Lord 
spoke these words; for we cannot possibly say that we do not 
belong to “the world,” for the life of which Christ gave His 
flesh. Who indeed can doubt that in the term world all per- 
sons are indicated who enter the world by being born? For, 
as He says in another passage, *The children of this world 
beget and are begotten."? From all this it follows, that even for 
the life of infants was His flesh given, which He gave for the 
life of the world ; and that even they will not have life if they 
eat not the flesh of the Son of man, 


Cap. 28. 


Hence also that other statement: “The Father loveth the 
Son, and hath given all things into His hand. ^ He that 
believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; while he that 
believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God 
abideth on him.”® Now in which of these classes must we place 
infants—amonest those who believe on the Son, or amongst 
those who believe not the Son? In neither, say some, because, 
as they are not yet able to believe, so must they not be deemed 
capable of unbelief. This, however, the rule of the Church 
does not indicate, for it joins baptized infants to the number 
of the faithful. Now if they who are baptized are, by virtue 
of the excellence and administration of so great a sacrament, 
still reckoned in the number of the faithful, although by their 
heart and mouth they do not literally perform what appertains 
to the action of faith and confession, surely they who have 
lacked the sacrament must be classed amongst those who do 
not believe on the Son; and therefore, if they shall depart 
this life without this grace, they will have to encounter what 
is written concerning such—they shall not have life, but the 


! John vi. 52. * Generant et generantur; Luke xx. 34. 
3 John iii. 34, 35. 


REN iU 4o da ue tac 


Acme 


Musecdemsometeteme ane cm 


CHAP. XXIX.]  GOD'S SECRETS WISE AND GOOD. 29 





wrath of God abideth on them. Whence could this result to 
those who clearly have no sins of their own, if they are not 
held to be obnoxious to original sin ? 

Cuap. 29. [xxr. ]—4t is an inscrutable mystery why some infants depart this life 


balked of baptism, and others not ; through faith we attain to understand- 
ing and knowledge. 


Now there is much significance in what He says. His words 
are not, * The wrath of God shall come upon him," but * The 
wrath of God abideth on him." For from this wrath (in which 
we are all involved under sin, and of which the apostle says, 
* For we too were once by nature the children of wrath, even 
as others". nothing delivers us but the grace of God, through 


our Lord Jesus Christ. The reason why this grace comes 4-- * 


upon one man and not on another may be a secret reason, but 
it cannot be an unjust one. For “is there unrighteousness 
with God? God forbid.”? We must first bend our necks to 
the authority of the Holy Scriptures, in order that we may each 
not said in vain, * Thy judgments are a great deep, O Lord."? 
The profundity of this *deep" the apostle, as if with a feel- 
ing of dread, notices in that exclamation: “O the depth of 
the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God !” 
He had indeed previously noticed the wonderful character of 
this depth, when he said : * For God hath concluded them all in 
unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all"* Then struck, 
as it were, with a horrible fear of this abyss, he goes on to say: 
* O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the know- 
ledge of God! how unsearchable are His judgments, and His 
ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the 
Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? or who hath first given 
to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of 
Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things: to whom 
be glory for ever. Amen." How utterly insignificant, then, 
is our faculty for discussing the justice of God’s judgments, 
and for the consideration of His gratuitous grace, which, as 
men have no prevenient merits for deserving it, cannot be 
partial or unrighteous, and which does not disturb us when 
1 Eph. ii. 3. ? Rom. ix. 14. 2s, xxx$i 5 
* Rom. xi. 32. 5 Rom. xi. 33-36. 


30 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





it is bestowed upon unworthy men, as much as when it is 
denied to those who are equally unworthy ! 
Cuap. 30. 

Now those very persons, who think it unjust that infants 
which depart this life without baptism should be deprived not 
only of the kingdom of God, into which they themselves admit 
that none but such as are regenerated through baptism can 
enter, but also of eternal life and salvation, when they ask 
how it can be just that one man should be freed from original 
sin and another not, although the condition of both of them is 
the same, might really answer their own question, and that on 
their own terms, [by determining] how it can be so frequently 
just and right that one man should have baptism administered 
to him whereby to enter into the kingdom of God, and another 
not be so favoured, although the case of both is alike. For if 
the question disturbs him, why, of the two persons, who are 
both .equally involved in original sin, the one is loosed from 
that bond on whom baptism is conferred, and the other is not 
released on whom such grace is not bestowed, why is he not 
similarly disturbed by the fact that of two persons, [whom 
he assumes to be] equally innocent by nature, one receives 
baptism, whereby he is able to enter into the kingdom of God, 
and the other does not receive it, so that he is incapable of 
approaching the kingdom of God? Now in both cases one 
recurs to the apostle's outburst of wonder, *O the depth of 
the riches!” Again, let me be informed, why of two baptized 
infants one is taken away, so that his understanding under- 
goes no change from a wicked life, and the other survives, 

_—\ destined to become an impious man? Suppose both were 
. earried off, would not both enter the kingdom of heaven? 
And yet there is no unrighteousness with God? How is it 
that no one is moved, no one is driven to the expression of 
wonder amidst ‘such depths, by the circumstance that some 
children are vexed by the unclean spirit, while others ex- 
perience no such pollution, and others again, as Jeremiah, 
are sanctified even in their mother’s womb ;? whereas all men, 

if there is original sin, are equally guilty; or else equally 
innocent if there is no original sin? Whence this great 


1 Wisdom iv. 11. 2 Rom. ix. 14 3 Jer. i 5. 





EHAP. Xxxl.] HUMAN CONDUCT DIVERSE. 31 





diversity, except in the fact that God’s judgments are un- 
searchable, and His ways past finding out ? 

Cuap. 31. [xxrr. ]— He refutes those who suppose that souls, on account of sins 

committed in another state, are thrust into bodies suited to their merits, in 


which they are more or less tormented. There is no salvation for the man 
to whom Christ has not been preached. 


Perhaps, however, the now exploded and rejected opinion 
must be resumed, that souls which once sinned in their 
heavenly abode, descend by stages and degrees to bodies 
suited to their deserts, and, as a penalty for their previous life, 
are more or less tormented by corporeal chastisements. To 
this opinion Holy Scripture indeed presents a most manifest 
contradiction ; for when recommending divine grace, it says: 
“For the children being not yet born, neither having done 
any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election 
might stand, not of works, but of Him that calleth, it was 
said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger"! And yet 
they who entertain such an opinion are actually unable to 
escape the perplexities of this question, but, embarrassed and 
straitened by them, are compelled to exclaim like others, * O 
the depth!" For whence does it come to pass that a person 
shall from his earliest boyhood show greater moderation, 
méntal excellence, and temperance, and shall to a great extent 
conquer lust, shall hate avarice, detest luxury, and rise to a 
greater eminence and aptitude in the other virtues, and yet 
live in such a place as to be unable to hear the grace of Christ 
preached ?—for “how shall they call on Him in whom they 
have not believed ? or how shall they believe in Him of whom 
they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a 
preacher ?"?— while another man, although of a tardy mind, 
addicted to lust, and covered with disgrace and crime, shall be 
so directed as to hear, and believe, and be baptized, and be 
taken away,—or, if permitted to remain longer here, lead the 
rest of his life in a manner that shall bring him praise ? 
Now where did these two persons acquire characters deserv- 
ing such diverse issues ;—1 do not say, causing the one to 
believe and the other not to believe, for that is a matter for a 


man's own will; but providing that the other should hear in ! 


4 Roms ix. 11, 12, ? Rom. x. 14. 


b 
LS 


32 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





order to believe, and that the other should not hear, for this 
is not within man’s power? Where, I say, did they acquire 
the merit of such different issues? If they had indeed passed 
any part of their life in heaven, so as to be thrust down, or (if 
you like) glide gently down, to this world, and to tenant such 
bodily receptacles as are fitted to their own former life, then 
of course that man ought to be supposed to have led the 
better life previous to his present body of death, who did 
not much deserve to be burdened with such a body for the 
purpose of possessing a good disposition, and of being impor- 
tuned by the milder desires which he could easily overcome ; 
and yet, [strange to say,] he did not deserve to have that grace 
preached to him whereby alone he could be delivered from the 
ruin of the second death. "Whereas the other, who was ham- 
pered with a grosser body, as a penalty—so they suppose— 
for his worse deserts, and was accordingly possessed of obtuser 
affections, whilst he was in the violent ardour of his lust, 
succumbing to the snares of the flesh, and by his wicked life 
ageravating his former sins, which had brought him to such a 
pass, by a still more abandoned course of earthly pleasures, 
[was arrested in his career, and] either heard upon the cross, 
“To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise,’* or else joined 
himself to some apostle, by whose preaching he became a 
changed man, and was saved by the washing of regeneration, 
—so that where sin once abounded, grace did much more 
abound. What answer they can get out of this, I am ata 
loss to know, in their wish to maintain God’s righteousness by 
human conjectures, who, knowing nothing of the depths of 
grace, have woven webs of improbable fable. 


Cur. 32.—The case of the Moriones (certain idiots and simpletons) adverted to ; 
one of these exhibited a remarkable sensitiveness whenever the name of 
Christ was insulted, notwithstanding his stupid insensibility to an injury 
done to himself. 

Now a good deal may be said of men's strange vocations,— 
either such as we have read about, or have experienced our- 
selves,——which go to overthrow the opinion of those persons 
who think that, previous to the possession of their bodies, 
men's souls passed through certain lives peculiar to them- 


1 Luke xxiii. 43. 


CHAP. XXXIL] EVEN IDIOTS SUSCEPTIBLE OF GRACE. 33 





selves, in which they must come to this, and experience in the 
present life either good or evil, according to the difference of 
their individual deserts. My anxiety, however, of bringing 
this work to an end does not permit me to dwell longer on 
these topics. But on one point, which among many I have 
found to be a very strange one, I will say something. Follow- 
ing those persons who suppose that souls are oppressed with 
earthly bodies in a greater or a less degree of grossness, ac- 
cording to the deserts of the life which had been passed in 
celestial bodies previous to the assumption of the present one, 
who is there among them that would not affirm that men 
previous to this life had sinned with an especial amount of 
enormity, deserving to lose all mental light, so as to be born 
with sensation akin to brute animals,—men who are (I will 
not say most slow in intellect, for this is very commonly said 
of others also, but) so stupid and silly as to make a show of 
their fatuity for the amusement of clever people, even with 
idiotic gestures! whom the vulgar call Moriones (brainless 
fools), after the Greek designation [for a simpleton—Muwpos] ? 
And yet there was once a certain person of this class, who was 
so imbued with Christian feeling, that although he used to 
bear with an endurance which almost amounted to an im- 
becile indifference any amount of injury to himself, he was 
yet so impatient of any contumelious treatment of the name 
of Christ, or of the reverence of it in himself, with which he 
was so imbued, that he could never refrain, whenever his gay 
and clever audience proceeded to blaspheme the sacred name, 
as they sometimes would in order to provoke his patience, 
from pelting them with stones; and on these occasions he 


would show no favour even to persons of rank. Well, now, 


such persons are predestinated and created, as I suppose, to 
understand, so far as they are able, that God’s grace and 
Spirit, “ which bloweth where it listeth,’? does not pass over 
any kind of disposition in the sons of mercy, nor in like 
manner does it omit from its notice any sort of character in 


1 We here follow the reading cerriti; other readings are,—curati (with studied 
folly) cirrati (with effeminate foppery), and citrati (decking themselves with 
citrus leaves). 

? John iii. 8. 

4 € 


« 


94 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





the children of wrath, so that * he that glorieth, let him glory 
in the Lord?! They, however, who affirm that souls severally 
receive different earthly bodies, more or less gross according 
to the merits of their former life, and that their abilities as 
men vary according to the self-same merits, so that some 
minds are sharper and others more obtuse, [must answer me 
one question, ]—is the grace of God also dispensed for the libera- 
tion of men from their sins according to the deserts of their 
former existence ? What will they have to say in reply on . 
this point? How, [for instance,] will they be able to attribute 
to the man of whom we have been speaking a previous life of 
so disgraceful a character that he deserved to be born an idiot, 
and at the same time so meritorious a career as to entitle him 
to a preference in the award of the grace of Christ over many 
men of the acutest intellect ? 
Cuap. 33.—Christ is the Saviour and Redeemer even of infants. 

Let us therefore give in and yield our assent to the 
authority of Holy Scripture, which knows not how either to 
be deceived or to deceive; and as we do not believe that men 
as yet unborn have done any good or evil for raising a differ- 
ence in their moral ‘deserts, so let us by no means doubt that 
all men are under that sin which came into the world by one 
man, and has passed through unto all men; and that from this 
sin nothing frees us but the grace of God through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. [xxir] His remedial advent is needed by those 
that are sick, not by the whole: for He came not to call the 
righteous, but sinners; and into His kingdom shall enter no 
one that is not born again of water and the Spirit; nor shall 
any one attain salvation and eternal life except in His king- 
dom,—sinee the man who believes not in the Son, and. eats 
not His flesh, shall not have life, but the wrath of God re- 
mains upon him. Now from this sinful condition, from this 
sick state, from this wrath of God (of which by nature they 
are children who have original sin, even if they in their life- 
time add none of their own commission), none delivers them, 
except the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the 
world ; except the Physician, who came not for the sake of the 
sound, but of the sick ; except the Saviour, concerning whom 

11 Cor. i 31. _ 





CHAP. XXXIV.] SACRAMENTAL GRACE FOR INFANTS, 35 





it was said to the human race: “ Unto you there is born this 
day a Saviour ;’* except the Redeemer, by whose blood our 
debt is blotted out. For who would dare to say that Christ 
is not the Saviour and Redeemer of infants? But from what 
does He save them, if there is no malady of original sin within 
them? From what does He redeem them, if through their 
origin from the first man they are not sold under sin? Let 
there be then no eternal salvation promised to infants out of 
our own mere whim and will, without Christ's baptism ; for 
none is promised in that Holy Scripture which is to be pre- 
ferred to all human authority and opinion. 

Cuap. 34. [xxiv.] Baptism is called salvation; and the Eucharist, life, by the 

Christians of Carthage. The ancient and apostolic tradition. 

The Christians of Carthage have an excellent name for the 
sacraments, when they say that baptism is nothing else than 
“salvation,” and the sacrament of the body of Christ nothing 
else than “life.” Whence, however, was this derived, but 
from that primitive, as I suppose, and apostolic tradition, by 
which the Churches of Christ maintain it to be an inherent 
principle, that without baptism and partaking of the supper 
of the Lord it is impossible for any man to attain to salvation 
and everlasting life? So much also does Scripture testify, 
according to the words which we already quoted. For wherein 
does their opinion, who designate baptism by the term salva- 
tion, differ from what is written: “ He saved us by the washing 
[or laver] of regeneration ?"? or from Peter's statement: “The 
like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us ?”? 
Then as for those who call the sacrament of the Lord's Supper 
life, what else do they say than that which is written: “I 
am the living bread which came down from heaven ;" * or that 
other statement: “The bread that I shall give is my flesh, 
which I will give for the life of the world;"? or again: 
* Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His 
blood, ye shall have no life in you?" If, therefore, as so 
many important scriptures agree in testifying, neither salva- 
tion nor eternal life can be hoped for by any man without 
baptism and the Lord's body and blood, it is vain to promise 

1 Luke ii. 11. *Ti n... FIT gib 

* John vi. 51. 5 John vi, 51. 8 John vi. 53. 


36 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





these blessings to infants without these [sacraments]. More- 
over, if it be only sins that separate man from salvation and 
eternal life, there is nothing else in infants which these sacra- 
ments can be the means of removing, but the guilt of [original] 
sin,—respecting which guilty nature it is written, that “no one 
is clean, not even if his life be only that of a day.” Whence 
also that exclamation of the Psalmist: “ Behold, I was shapen 
in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother conceive me pr qms As 
either said in the person of our common humanity, or of him- 
self only does David speak. Even if the latter be the sense, it 
can have no reference to fornication, of course, because David 
was born in lawful wedlock. We therefore ought not to 


doubt that even for the baptism of infants was that precious 


blood shed, which previous to its actual effusion was so given, 
and applied in the sacrament, that it was said [by Him who 
gave His life for us,] * This is my blood, which shall be shed 
for many for the remission of sins"? Now they who will not 
allow that they are under sin, deny that there is any libera- 
tion. For what is there that men are liberated from, if they 
.are held to be bound by no bondage of sin? 
Cuap. 35. Unless infants are baptized, they remain in darkness. 

*I am come,” says Christ, “a light into the world, that 
whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” * 
Now what does this passage show us, but that every person 
is in darkness who does not believe on Him, and that it is 
by believing on Him that he escapes from this permanent 
state of darkness? What do we understand by the darkness 
but sin? And whatever else it may embrace in its meaning, 
at any rate he who believes not in Christ will * abide in dark- 
ness,’—-which, of course, is a penal state, not as the darkness 
of the night necessary for the refreshment of living beings. 
[xxv.] So that infants, unless they pass into the number of 
believers through the sacrament which was divinely instituted 
for this purpose, will undoubtedly remain in this darkness. 

Cuap. 86. Some have concluded from the gospel, that infants, as soon as 

they are born, are enlightened. 

Some, however, understand that as soon as children are 
born they are enlightened; and they derive this opinion from 

1 Job xiv. 4 (Sept.). tITS ho ? Matt. xxvi. 28. 4 John xii. 46. 


* 





CHAP. XXXVIL] GOD THE UNIVERSAL ENLIGHTENER. 37 





the passage: “That was the true Light, which lighteth every 
one that cometh into the world"! Well, if this be the case, 
it is quite astonishing how it can be that those who are thus 
enlightened by the only-begotten Son, who was the Word in 
the beginning with God, and [Himself] God, are not admitted 
into the kingdom of God, nor are heirs of God and joint-heirs 
with Christ. For that such an inheritance is not bestowed 
upon them except through baptism, even they who hold the 
opinion in question do acknowledge. Then, again, if they 


if 


are (though already illuminated) thus admitted to be unfit © 


for entrance into the kingdom of God, they at all events 
ought gladly to receive baptism, because, at least, they are fit 
for it; but, strange to say, we see how reluctant infants are to 
submit to baptism, resisting even with strong crying. And this 
ignorance of theirs we think lightly of at their time of life, so 
that we fully administer the sacraments, which we know to be 
serviceable to them, even although they struggle against them. 
And why, too, does the apostle say, “Be not children in 
understanding,” ? if their minds have been already enlightened, 
[according to the hypothesis,] with that true Light, which is 
the Word of God ? 


CuaAr. 37. How God enlightens every person ; God, teaches in one way, man in 
another ; the Sun of wisdom shines everywhere, but is not seen by fools. 


The statement, therefore, which occurs in the gospel, 
“That was the true Light, which lghteth every one that 
cometh into the world," has this meaning, that no man is 
illuminated except with that Light of the truth; which is God ; 
so that no person must think that he is enlightened by him 
whom he listens to as a learner, if that instructor happen to 
be—I will not say, any great man—but even an angel him- 
self. For the word of truth is applied to man externally by 
the ministry of a bodily voice, but yet “neither is he that 
planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that 
giveth the increase"? Man indeed hears the speaker, be he 
man or angel, but in order that he may perceive and know 
that what is said is true, his mind is internally besprinkled 
with that light which remains for ever, and which shines even 
in darkness. But just as the sun is not seen by the blind, 

! John i. 9. ? ] Cor. xiv. 20. 24 Corsa 7 


98 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. — [BOOK I. 





though they are clothed as it were with its rays, so is the light 
of truth not understood by the darkness of folly. 


Cuap. 38. 


But why, after saying, “which lighteth every one,” should 
he have added, “that cometh into the world,"—the clause 
which has suggested the opinion that He enlightens the minds 
of newly-born babes in the recent birth of their bodies from 
their mother’s womb? for the words are so placed in the 
- Greek, that they may be understood to express that the light 
itself “cometh into the world.” ! If, however, the clause 
must be taken as a predicate of man [* every one who cometh 
into the world”], I suppose that it is either a simple phrase, 
like many others one finds in the Scriptures, which may be 
removed without impairing the general sense, or else, if it is 
to be regarded as a distinctive addition, it was probably in- 
serted in order to distinguish spiritual illumination from that 
bodily one which enlightens the eyes of the flesh either by 
means of the luminaries of the sky, or by the lights of ordinary 
fire. He mentioned, therefore, the inner man as coming into 
the world, because the outward man is of a corporeal nature, 
just as this worldly fabric is itself; as if he said, “Which 
lighteth every man on his coming into the body,” in accord- 
ance with that which is written: *I obtained a good spirit, 
and I came into a body undefilel"? Or again, if the pas- 
sage, “ Which lighteth every one that cometh into the world,” 
was added for the sake of expressing some distinction, it might . 
perhaps mean: Which illuminates every inner man, because, 
when the inner man becomes truly wise, it is enlightened only 
by Him who is the true Light; or, once more, if the intention 
was to designate reason herself, which causes the human soul 
to be called rational (and which faculty, although as yet quiet 
and as it were asleep, is for all that latent in infants, sown 
and implanted in their nature), by the term 4/Ilwménation, as 
if it were the creation of the eye within, then it cannot be 
denied that it is made when the soul is created; and there is 
no absurdity in supposing this to take place when the human. 


1*9 [scil. «à Q2s] Puwries wavra Rvlpwerov ip; óposvov tig Tov xómquov. 


? Wisd. viii. 19, 20. 


CHAP. XXXIX.] ORIGINAL SIN UNIVERSAL. 39 





being comes into the world. But yet, although his eye is 
now created, he himself must needs remain in darkness, if he 
does not believe in Him who said: “I am come a Light into \ 
the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide | 
in darkness"! Now that this takes place in the case of 


infants, through the sacrament of baptism, is not doubted by . i 


our mother the Church, which uses for them the heart and 
mouth of a mother, that they may be imbued with the sacred 
mysteries, seeing that they have not themselves as yet a 
heart for “believing unto righteousness,” nor a mouth of their 
own to make “ confession unto salvation.”* There is not indeed 
a man among the faithful, who would hesitate to call such 
infants believers merely from the circumstance that such a 
designation is derived from the act of believing; for although 
incapable of such an act themselves, yet others are sponsors 
for them in the sacraments. 


Cuap. 39. [xxvi.]—The conclusion drawn, that all are involved in original sin. 


It would be tedious, were we fully to discuss, at similar 
length, every testimony bearing on the question. I suppose 
it will be the more convenient course simply to collect the 
passages together which may turn up, or such as shall seem 
suitable for manifesting the truth, that the Lord Jesus Christ 
came in the flesh, and, in the form of a servant, became 
obedient even to the death of the cross? for no other reason 
than (by this dispensation of His most merciful grace) to give 
life to all those who are engrafted members of His body, and 
to whom accordingly He becomes their Head for their gaining 
possession of the kingdom of heaven ; and furthermore to save, 
free, redeem, and enlighten them, involved as they had afore- 
time been in the death of sin, exposed to its infirmities, 
thraldom, captivity, and darkness, under the dominion of 
the devil, the author of sin; that He might thus become the 
Mediator between God and man, and that by Him (after the 
enmity of our ungodly condition had been terminated by His 
gracious help) we might be reconciled to God unto eternal 
life, having been rescued from the everlasting death which 
threatened such as us. When this shall have been made 

1 John xii. 46. ? Rom. x. 10. *Phudh 5 


40 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





clear by more than sufficient evidence, it will follow that 
those persons can have no possible connection with that dis- 
pensation of Christ which is comprised in His humiliation, 
who have no need of life, and salvation, and deliverance, and 
redemption, and illumination. And inasmuch as this dis- 
pensation has [for one of its instruments] the baptism in 
which we are buried with Christ, in order to be incorporated 
into Him as His members (that is, as those who believe in 
Him), it must of course be inferred that baptism is unneces- 
sary for them, who have no need of the benefit of that 
forgiveness and reconciliation which is acquired through a 
Mediator. Now, seeing that they admit the necessity of 
baptizing infants,—finding themselves unable to contravene 
that authority of the universal Church, which has been 
unquestionably handed down by the Lord and His apostles, 
—they cannot avoid the further concession, that infants 
require the same benefits of the Mediator, in order that, being 
washed by the sacrament and charity of the faithful, and 
thereby incorporated into the body of Christ, which is the 
Church, they may be reconciled to God, and so live in Him, 
and be saved, and delivered, and redeemed, and enlightened ; 
but [saved and delivered] from what, if not from death, and 
the vices, and guilt, and thraldom, and darkness of sin? 
Now, inasmuch as there cannot be committed any of these 
in the tender age of infancy by any actual transgression, it 
follows that original sin [must be inherent in infants]. 


Cuap. 40. [xxvit.}—A collection of Scripture testimonies. 


This reasoning will carry more weight, after I have col- 
lected the mass of Scripture testimonies which I have under- 
taken to adduce. We have already quoted: “I came not to 
call the righteous, but sinners.”* To the same purport [the 
Lord] says, on entering the home of Zaccheus: “To-day 1s 
salvation come to this house, forsomuch as he also is a son of 
Abraham; for the Son of man is come to seek and to save 
that which was lost"? The same truth is declared in the 
parable of the lost sheep and the ninety and nine which were 
left until the missing one was sought and found;? as it is 

1 Luke v. 32. ? Luke xix. 9. 3 Luke xv. 4. 


CHAP. XLI.] ^ SCRIPTURE PROOFS, FROM THE GOSPEL. 41 





also in the parable of the lost one among the ten silver coins.’ 
Whence, as He said, “it behoved that repentance and remis- 
sion of sins should be preached in His name among all 
nations, beginning at Jerusalem"? Mark likewise, at the 
end of his Gospel, tells us how that the Lord said: * Go ye 
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. 
- He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved ; but he that 
believeth not shall be damned"? Now, who can be unaware 
that in the case of infants being baptized is to believe, and 
not being baptized is not to believe? From the Gospel of 
John we have already adduced some passages. However, I 
must also request your attention to the following: John 
Baptist says of Christ, “Behold the Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world;’* and He too says of 
Himself, * My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and 
they follow me: and I give unto them eternal life; and they 
shall never perish"? Now, inasmuch as infants are only 
able to become His sheep by baptism, it must needs come to 
pass that they perish if they are not baptized, because they 
will not have that eternal life which He gives to His sheep. 
So in another passage He says: “I am the way, the truth, 
and the life; no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” 9 


Cuar. 41. 


See with what earnestness the apostles declare this doctrine, 
after they had once received it. Peter, in his first Epistle, 
says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, which, according to His abundant mercy, hath regene- 
rated us unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus 
Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and 
undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for 
you, who are kept by the power of God through faith unto 
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time"" Anda 
little afterwards he adds: “ May ye be found unto the praise 
and honour of Jesus Christ: of whom ye were ignorant; but 
in whom ye believe, though now ye see Him not; and in 


1 Luke xv. 8. ? Luke xxiv. 46, 47. 3 Mark xvi. 15, 16. 
4 John i. 29. 5 John x. 27, 28. 6 John xiv. 6. 
71 Pet. i. 3-5. 


42 . ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. - [BOOK I. 





whom also ye shall rejoice, when ye shall see Him, with joy 
unspeakable and full of glory: receiving the end of your 
faith, even the salvation of your souls"! Again, in another 
place he says: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal 
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should 
show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of 
darkness into His marvellous light.”? Once more he says: 
“Christ hath once suffered for our sins, the just for the 
unjust, that He might bring us to God;"? and, after men- 
tioning the fact of eight persons having been saved in Noah’s 
ark, he adds: “And by the like figure baptism saveth you.” * 
Now infants are strangers to this salvation and light, and 
will remain in perdition and darkness, unless they are joined 
to the people of God by adoption, holding that Christ suffered 
the just for the unjust, to bring them unto God. 
Cuap. 42. 

Moreover, from John’s Epistle I meet with the following 
words, which seem indispensable to the solution of this 
question : “ But if,” says he, “we walk in the light, as He 
is in the light, we have fellowship one with AES and the 
blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin"? 
To the like import he says, in another place: *If we receive 
the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is 
the witness of God which He hath testified of His Son. He 
that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: 
he that believeth not God hath made Him a liar; because he 
believeth not the record that God gave of His Son. And this 
is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this 
life is in His Son. He that hath the Son hath no and he 
that hath not the Son of God hath not life? Tt seems, 
then, that it is not only the kingdom of heaven, but life also, 
which infants are not to have, if they have not the Son, 
whom they can only have by His baptism. So again he 
says: “For this cause the Son of God was manifested, that 
He might destroy the works of the devil? Therefore infants 
will ee no interest in the manifestation of the Son of God, 
if He do not in them destroy the works of the devil. 


iT pet. 3 740; 21 Pet. ii. 9. 5 Pet. Hii, 18. * ] Pet. iii. 21. 
51 John i. 7. 61 John v. 9-12, 71 John iii. 8. 


CHAP. XLIII.] ST. PAUL ON GOD’S GRACE. 43 





Cua». 43.— Paul was an earnest preacher of the grace of God. 


Let me now request your attention to the testimony of the 
Apostle Paul on this subject. And quotations from him may 
of course be made more abundantly, because he wrote more 
epistles, and because it fell to him to recommend the grace 
of God with especial earnestness, in opposition to those who 
gloried in their works, and who, ignorant of God's righteous- 
ness, and wishing to establish their own, submitted not to the 
righteousness of God. In his Epistle to the Romans he 
writes: “The righteousness of God is upon all them that 
believe; for there is no difference; since all have sinned, and 
come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by His 
grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom 
God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His 
blood, to declare His righteousness for the remission of sins 
that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare, I 
say, at this time His righteousness; that He might be just, 
and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus"? Then 
in another passage he says: “To him that worketh is the 
reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that - 
worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, 
his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also 
describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God. 
imputeth righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are 
they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. 
Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth no sin"? 
And then after no long interval he observes: “ Now, it was 
not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but 
for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on Him 
that raised up Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead; who 
was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our 
justification" * Then a little after he writes: * For when 
we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the 
ungodly."? In another passage he says: “We know that 
the law is spiritual; but I am earnal, sold under sin. For that 
which I do I know not: for what I would, that I do not; 

but what I hate, that I do. If then I do that which I would 


1 Rom. x. 8. ? Rom. iii. 22-206. 3 Rom. iv. 4-8. 
“Rom. iv. 28-25. 5 Rom. v. 6. 


44 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, it is 
no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. Forl 
know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good 
thing; for to will is present with me; but how to perform 
that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I 
do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I 
do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that 
dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do 
good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God 
after the inward man: but I see another law in my members 
warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into 
captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O 
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death? I thank God, through Jesus Christ our 
Lord"! Let them, who can, say that men are not born in 
this body of death, that so they may be able to affirm that 
they have no need of God's grace through Jesus Christ in 
order to be delivered from the body of this death. ^ There- 
fore he adds, a few verses afterwards: “For what the law 
could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, 
sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for 
sin, condemned sin in the flesh"? Let them say, who dare, 
that Christ must have been born in the likeness of sinful 
flesh, if we were not born in sinful flesh. 


Crap. 44. 


likewise to the Corinthians he says: * For I delivered to 
you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ 
died for our sins according to the Scriptures? Again, in his 
Second Epistle to these Corinthians: * For the love of Christ 
constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if One died for 
all, then were all dead: and for all did Christ die, that they 
which live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto 
Him which died for them, and rose again.  Wherefore, hence- 
forth know we no man after the flesh; yea, though we have 
known Christ after the flesh, yet from henceforth know we 
Him so no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a 
new creature ; old things are passed away ; behold, all things 


1 Rom. vii. 14-25. 3 Rom. viii. 8. SD Cor. xv. 8i 


CHAP. XLVI.] PROOFS FROM HIS EPISTLES. 45 





are become new. And all things are of God, who hath recon- 
ciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given unto us 
the ministry of reconciliation. To what effect? That God 
was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imput- 
ing their trespasses unto them, and putting on us the ministry 
of reconciliation. Now then are we ambassadors for Christ, 
as though God did beseech you by us; we pray you in 
Christ's stead, to be reconciled to God. For He hath made 
Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin ; that we might become 
the righteousness of God in Him! We then, as workers to- 
gether with Him, beseech you also that ye receive not the 
grace of God in vain. (For He saith, I have heard thee in 
an acceptable time, and in the day of salvation have I suc- 
coured thee: behold, now is the acceptable time ; behold, now 
is the day of salvation.)”? Now, if infants are not embraced 
within this reconciliation and salvation, who wants them for 
the baptism of Christ? But if they are embraced [in this re- 
conciliation and salvation,] then are they reckoned as among the 
dead for whom He died ; nor can they be possibly reconciled 
and saved by Him, unless He remit and impute not unto them 
their sins. 
Cnr. 45. 

Likewise to the Galatians the apostle writes: “ Grace be to 
you, and peace, from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver 
us from this present evil world." While in another passage 
he says to them: * The law was added because of trans- 
gressions, until the seed should come to whom the promise 
was made; and it was ordained by angels in the hand of a 
mediator. Now a mediator belongs not to one party; but God 
is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God 
forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have 
given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. 
But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the pro- 
mise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that 
believe."* 

Cup. 46. 
To the Ephesians he addresses words of the same import: 
1 2 Cor. v. 14-21. 22 Cor. vi. 1, 2. 3 Ga]. i. 3. * Gal. iii. 19-22. 


46 | ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





* And you [hath He quickened,] when ye were dead in tres- 
passes and sins; wherein in time past ye walked according to 
the course of this world, according to the prince of the power 
of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of dis- 
obedience ; among whom also we all had our conversation in 
times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of 
the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children 
of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for 
His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were 
dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ ; by whose 
grace ye are saved.”* Again, a little afterwards, he says : “ By 
grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of yourselves: 
it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should 
boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus 
unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we 
should walk in them."? And again, after a short interval: 
“ At that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the 
commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of 
promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: but 
now, in Christ Jesus, ye who were sometimes far off are made 
nigh by the blood of Christ. For He is our peace, who hath 
made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of par- 
tition between us; having abolished in His flesh the enmity, 
even the law of commandments contained in ordinances ; for 
to make in Himself of twain one new man, so making peace ; 
and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by 
the cross, having in Himself slain the enmity; and He came 
and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them 
that were nigh. For through Him we both have access by one 
Spirit unto the Father"? Then in another passage he thus 
writes : “ As the truth is in Jesus : that ye put off, concerning 
the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt accord- 
ing to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of 
your mind ; and that ye put on the new man, which after God 
is created in righteousness and true holiness.”* And again: 
“Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed 
unto the day of redemption."? 


1 Eph. ii. 1-5. ? Eph. ii. 8-10. 8 Eph, ii. 12-18. 
* Eph. iv. 22-24, * Eph. iv. 30. 


CHAP. XLVIIL]. FURTHER PROOFS FROM ST. PAUL. 47 





Cuar. 47. 


To the Colossians he addresses these words : * Giving thanks 
unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of 
the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us 
from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the 
kingdom of His dear Son; in whom we have redemption in 
the remission of our sins"! And again he says: * And ye 
are complete in Him, which is the head of all principality and 
power: in whom also ye are circumcised with the circum- 
cision made without hands, in putting off the body of the 
flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried with Him in 
baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through the 
faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the 
dead. And you, when ye were dead in your sins and the 
uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with ~ 
. Him, having forgiven you all trespasses ; blotting out the hand- 
writing of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary 
to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to His cross ; and 
putting the flesh off Him, He made a bold and confident 
show of principalities and powers, triumphing over them in 
Himself? | ud 

Cuap. 48. 

And then to Timothy he says: “This is a faithful saying, 
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners ; of whom I am chief.  Howbeit for this 
cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might 
show forth all long-suffering, for a pattern to them which 
should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting.”® He 
also says: “For there is one God and one Mediator between 
God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself 
a ransom for all"5 In his second Epistle to the same 
Timothy, he says: “ Be not thou therefore ashamed of the 
testimony of our Lord, nor of me His prisoner: but be thou 
a fellow-labourer for the gospel, according to the power of 
God; who hath saved us, and called us with a holy calling, 
not according to our works, but according to His own purpose 
and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the 


1 CoL. 12-14, ? Exuens se carnem. 3 Co]. ii. 10-15. 
* Humanus sermo. 51 Tim L5; 16. 6 1 Tim. ii. 5, 6. 


48 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





world began; but is now manifested by the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, and hath brought life 
and immortality to light through the gospel"! 


CHAP. 49. 


Then again he writes to Titus as follows : “ Looking for that 
blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and 
our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He 
might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a 
peculiar people, zealous of good works.”? And to the like 
effect in another passage: “But after that the kindness and 
love of God our Saviour toward man appeared, not by works 
of righteousness which we have done, but according to His 
mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and re- 
newing of the Holy Ghost; which He shed on us abundantly 
through Jesus Christ our Saviour; that, being justified by 
His grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of 
eternal life.”® 

Cap. 50. | 

The Epistle of the Hebrews, although its authority is 
doubted by some,* is, I find, sometimes held by persons, who 
oppose our opinion touching the baptism of infants, to contain 
evidence in favour of their own views. We are therefore 
bound to notice the pointed testimony it bears in our behalf; 
and I quote it the more confidently, because of the authority 
of the Eastern Churches, which expressly place it amongst the 
canonical Scriptures. In ‘its very exordium one thus reads: 
* God, who at sundry times, and in divers manners, spake in 
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last 
days spoken to us by His Son, whom He hath appointed heir 
of all things, by whom also He made the worlds ; who, being 


1 2 Tim. i. 8-10. a Tit, B 138 14 PT ns. 

* Amongst the Latins, as Jerome tells us in more than one passage (see his 
Commentaries, on Isa. vi., viii. ; on Zech. viii ; on Matt. xxvi. ; also, in his 
Catal. Script. Eccles., c. xvi. [ad Paulum], and lxx. [ad Gaium], éte,). The 
Greeks, however, held that the epistle was the work of St. Paul. In his Epistle 
exxix. [ad Dardanum] he thus writes: ** We must admit that the epistle written 
to the Hebrews is regarded as the Apostle Paul's, not only by the ehurches of 
the East, but by all church writers who have from the beginning (retro) written 
in Greek. "-—[NOoTE OF THE BENEDICTINE EDITOR.] 





CHAP. L.] THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS. 49 





the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His 
person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, 
when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the 
right hand of the Majesty on high.”* And by and by the 
writer says: “ For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, 
and every transgression and disobedience received a just re- 
compense of reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so 
great salvation ?"? And again in another passage: “ Foras- 
much then," says he, *as the children are partakers of flesh 
and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; 
that through death He might destroy him that had the power 
of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through 
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."? 
Again, shortly after, he says: “ Wherefore in all things it be- 
hoved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might 
be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to 
God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people"* And 
in another place he writes: * Let us hold fast our profession. 
For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with 
the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all points tempted 
like as we are, yet without sin. ? Again he says: “He hath 
an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore He is able also to save 
them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing 
He ever liveth to make intercession for them. For such a 
High Priest became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, sepa- 
rate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who 
needeth not daily (as those high priests) to offer up sacrifice, 
first for His own sins, and then for the people's: for this He 
did once, when He offered up Himself"? And once more: 
* For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with 
hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven 
itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: nor yet 
that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth 
into the holy place every year with blood of others; (for then 
must He often have suffered since the foundation of the 
world ;) but now once, in the end of the world, hath He ap- 
peared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. And as it 
1 Heb. i. 1-3. HOS EpL 3 Heb. ii. 14, 15. 
P Hebi lj. 5 Heb. iv. 14, 15. 6 Heb. vii. 24-27. 
4 D 


50 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judg- 
ment ; so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many: and 
unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time, 


without sin, unto salvation.”* 


Cuap. 51. 

The Revelation of John likewise tells us that in a new song 
these praises are offered to Christ: “Thou art worthy to take 
the book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, 
and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.”* 

Cnar. 52. 

To the like effect, in the Acts of the Apostles, the Apostle 
Peter designated the Lord Jesus as “the Prince or Author of 
life,” upbraiding the Jews for having put Him to death in 
these words: * But ye dishonoured and denied the Holy One 
and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, 
and ye killed the Prince of life"? ^ While in another passage 
he says: “This is the stone which was set at nought by you 
builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is 
there salvation in any other: for there is none other name 
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."* 
And again, elsewhere: “The God of our fathers raised up 
Jesus, whom ye slew, by hanging on a tree. Him hath God | 
exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for 
to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Once 
more [the same apostle says:] * To Him give all the prophets 
witness, that, through His name, whosoever believeth in Him 
shall receive remission of sins". Whilst in the same Acts of 
the Apostles Paul says: “Be it known therefore unto you, men 
and brethren, that through this Man is preached unto you the 
forgiveness of sins: and by. Him every one that believeth is 
justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified 
by the law of Moses."' 

Cuap. 53.— The utility of the books of the Old Testament. 

Under so great a weight of testimony, who would not be 

oppressed that should dare lift up his voice against the truth 


1 Heb. ix. 24-28. 3 Rev. v. 9. 3 Acts iii. 14, 15. 
4 Acts iv. 11, 12. 5 Acts v. 30, 31. 6 Acts x. 49. 
7 Acts xiii, 38, 39. | 








CHAP. LIV.] THE OLD TESTAMENT SCRIPTURES. 51 





of God? And many other testimonies might be found, were 
it not for my anxiety to bring this tract to an end,—an anxiety 
which I must not slight. From the books of the Old Testament, 
likewise, many attestations to our doctrine in inspired words 
[might be adduced, but these] I have deemed it superfluous to 
quote, on the ground that what they have concealed under the 
veil of earthly promises is clearly revealed in the preaching of 
the New Testament. Our Lord Himself briefly demonstrated 
and defined the use of the Old Testament writings, when He 
said that it was necessary there should be a fulfilment of what 
had been written concerning Himself in the Law, and in the 
Prophets, and in the Psalms, even to the effect that Christ 
must suffer, and rise from the dead the third day, and that 
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His 
name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. In agree- 
ment with which is that statement of Peter which I have 
already quoted, how that all the prophets bear witness to 
Christ, through whose means every one that believes in Him 
receives remission of his sins? 


Cuap. 54.—By the sacrifices of the Old Testament men were convinced of sins 
rather than cleansed from them. 


And yet it is perhaps better to advance a few testimonies 
even out of the Old Testament, which will serve to supplement 
our former quotations, or rather form a crowning addition to 
their value. The Lord Himself, speaking by the Psalmist, 
says: “As for my saints which are upon earth, He hath 
wonderfully fulfilled all my purposes in them.”* He does not 
say their merits, but “my purposes.” For what is theirs except 
that which is afterwards mentioned,“ their sorrows are multi- 
plied,"—proving the fact that they are weak? Wherefore 
also the law entered, that the offence might abound. But 
why does the Psalmist immediately add: * They hastened after 
another?"? When their sorrows and infirmities multiplied (that 
is, when their offence abounded), they then sought the Phy- 
sician with the greater eagerness, that so, where sin abounded, 
grace might much more abound. He then says: “I will not 
gather their assemblies together [with their offerings] of blood;” 


1 See Luke xxiv. 44-47. ? Acts x. 43. 
3 Ps. xvi. 3 (Sept.). “Ps. xvi. 4. 5 Ds. xvi. 4. 


52 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 
for by their many sacrifices of blood, when they gathered 
their assemblies into the tabernacle at first, and then into the 
temple, they were rather convicted as sinners than cleansed. 
I shall not then gather these assemblies of blood-offerings 
together, He says in fact; because there is one blood-shedding 
given for many, whereby they may be cleansed in very deed. 
Then it follows, [in the same verse :] “ Neither will I make 
mention of their names with my lips.” For these were their 
names at first: children of the flesh, children of the world, 
children of wrath, children of the devil, unclean, sinners, im- 
pious; but afterwards they became children of God,—becom- 
ing a new man, a new name befits them; and a new song, 
because endued with new chanting powers by means of the 
New Testament [of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ]. Men 
must not be ungracious with God’s grace, mean and small 
with great things; [but be ever rising] from the less to the 
greater. The cry of the whole Church is, “I have gone astray 
like a lost sheep.”* From all the members of Christ the voice 
is heard: “ All we, as sheep, have gone astray; and He hath 
Himself been delivered up for our sins"? The whole of this 
passage is that famous one in Isaiah which was expounded by 
Philip to the eunuch of Queen Candace, when he on the 
strength of it believed in Jesus? See how often he com- 
mends this very subject, and, as it were, inculcates it again and 
again on proud and contentious men: “He was a man under a 
heavy stroke, who well knew how to bear infirmities ; because 
His face was averted, dishonoured, and lightly esteemed. 
He carries our sins, and for us is involved in pains: and we 
accounted Him to be [for Himself] in pain, and suffering, and 
punishment. But He was wounded for our sins, was weakened 
for our infirmities; it was our peace's chastisement that was 
inflicted on Him; and by His bruise we are healed. All we, 
as sheep, have gone astray; and the Lord delivered Him up for 
our sins. And although He was Himself so evilly treated, He 
yet opened not His mouth: as a sheep was He led to the 
slaughter, and as a lamb is dumb before the shearer, so He 
opened not His mouth. In His humiliation His judgment 
was taken away: His generation who shall declare? For His 
LPs cxbe 170; ? Isa. liii. 6. 3 Acts viii. 90-97. 





CHAP. LV.] THE SACRIFICE OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST. 53 





life shall be taken away from the earth, and for the iniquities 
of my people was He led to death. Therefore I will give the 
wicked for His burial, and the rich for His death; because He 
did no iniquity, nor deceit with His mouth. The Lord is 
pleased to purge Him from His stroke. If you could your- 
selves have given your soulan offering for sin, then ye should 
certainly see a seed of a prolonged life. The Lord is also 
pleased to rescue His soul from its travail, to show Him light, 
and to form it through His understanding ; to justify the Just 
One, who serves so well the cause of many; and He shall Him- 
self bear their sins. Therefore for His inheritance He shall 
possess many, and He shall divide the spoils of the mighty; and 
He was numbered amongst the transgressors; and Himself bare 
the sins of many, and for their iniquities was He delivered."! - 
Consider also that passage of this same prophet which Christ 
actually declared to be fulfilled in Himself, when He recited 
it in the synagogue [of Nazareth], discharging the function of 
the reader :? “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He 
hath anointed me: to preach glad tidings to the poor hath He 
sent me; (that so I may refresh all who are broken-hearted,) as 
well as to preach deliverance to the captives, and to the blind 
recovery of their sight"? Let us then all acknowledge Him; 
nor should there be one exception among persons like our- 
selves, who wish to cleave to His body, to enter through Him 
into the sheepfold, and to attain to that salvation and eternal 
life which He has promised to His own.—Let us, I repeat, 
all of us acknowledge Him who did no sin, who bare our sins 
in His own body on the tree, that we might live unto righteous- 
ness separate from sins; by whose wounds and scars we are 
healed, although in ourselves so weak—as erring sheep. 


Cuap. 55. [xxvir. ]—Z7e concludes that all men need the death of Christ, that 9 
they may be saved. Unbaptized infants will be involved in the condemna- 
tion of the devil. How all men through Adam are unto condemnation ; and 
through Christ unto justification. 

Under such circumstances, no man of those who have been 
joined to Christ by baptism has ever been regarded, according 
to sound doctrine and the true faith, as excepted from the 


1 Isa. liii. 3-12 (Sept.). ? See Luke iv. 16-21. ? Isa, lxi. 1. 
* There is here some omission. —BENEDICTINE NOTE. 


54 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





grace of forgiveness of sins; nor has eternal life been ever 
thought possible to any man except in Christ’s kingdom. For 
this [eternal life] is ready to be revealed at the last time," 
which will be at the resurrection of the dead who are reserved 
not for that eternal death which is called “the second death,” 
but for the eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promises 
to His saints and faithful servants. Now all who shall partake 
of this life can only be made alive in Christ, even as all die in 
Adam.” For as none whatever, in respect of their birth accord- 
ing to.the will of the flesh, die except in Adam, in whom they 
all sinned, so none at all who are regenerated by the will of 
the Spirit are endowed with life except in Christ, in whom 
they are all justified. Because as through one all [are brought] 
to condemnation, so through One are all [brought] to justifica- 
tion. Nor is there any middle place or state for any man, so 
that a man can only be with the devil who is not with Christ. 
Accordingly, even the Lord Himself (wishing to remove from 
the minds of heretical thinkers? that vague and indefinite 
middle condition, which some would provide for unbap- 
tized infants,—as if, by reason of their innocence, they were 
embraced in eternal life, but were not, because of their un- 
baptized state, with Christ in His kingdom) uttered that 
definitive sentence of His, which seems intended to shut the 
mouths of these persons: “ He that is not with me is against 
me."* Take then the case of any infant you please: If he is 
already in Christ, why baptize him? If, however, as the Truth 
puts the case, he is baptized for the express purpose of being 
with Christ, it certainly follows that he who is not orn 
is not with Christ; and if he is not “with” Christ, he is 
“against” Christ ; for He has pronounced His own sentence, 
which is so explicit that we ought not, and indeed cannot, 
impair it or change it. And how can. he be “ against” Christ, 
if not owing to sin? for it cannot possibly be from his soul or 
his body, both of these being the creation of God. Now if it 
be owing to sin, what sin can be found at such an age, except 
the ancient and original sin? Of course that sinful flesh in 
which all are born to condemnation is one thing, and that 
Flesh which was made “after the likeness of sinful flesh,” 
"1 Pet.i 5. %1Cor. xv. 22,  ? Malbceredentium. 4 Matt. xii. 30. 





CHAP. LVL] CONDEMNATION AND JUSTIFICATION. 55 





whereby also all are freed from condemnation, is another 
thing. It is, however, by no means meant to be implied that 
all who are born in sinful flesh are themselves actually 
cleansed by that Flesh which is “like” sinful flesh; “ for all 
men have not faith"! [What is meant is, to predicate such 
a universal sense in each case as shall be compatible with 
their respective conditions, so that] all who spring from 
natural concubinage are born entirely of sinful flesh, whilst all 
who are born again of spiritual betrothal are cleansed only by 
the Flesh which is in the likeness of sinful flesh. In other 
words, the former class are in Adam [born] to condemnation, 
the latter are in Christ [regenerated] to justification. This is 
pretty much the same thing as saying, for example, that in 
such a city there is a certain widwife who undertakes for all ; 
and in the same place there is an expert teacher who instructs 
the entire community. [Now in these modes of expression 
there is of course a limitation.] In the one case, only those 
who are born can possibly be understood; in the other case, 
only those who are taught: it does not, however, follow that 
all who are born also receive the instruction. For it is 
obvious to any that the former statement, about her under- 
taking for all, indicates that none is born without passing 
through her hands ; while the other assertion, about his teach- 
ing all, implies that none is instructed except by his tuition. 


Cap. 56.—No one is reconciled to God except through Christ. 


- Taking into account all the inspired statements which I 
have quoted,—whether I regard the separate value of each 
passage, or combine their united testimony in an accumu- 
lated witness (or if I even include similar passages which I 
have not adduced),—theré can be nothing discovered, but that 
which the Catholic Church holds, in her dutiful ‘vigilance 
against all profane novelties, that every man is separated from 
God, except those who are reconciled to Him through Christ 
the Mediator; and that no one can be separated from God, 
except through the sins which cause separation: that there is, 
therefore, no reconciliation except by the remission of sins, 
through the grace alone of the most merciful Saviour,—through 
| ! 2 Thess. iii. 2. 





56 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK L 





the only sacrifice of the most veritable Priest; and that none 
who are born of the woman, that trusted the serpent and 
was corrupted through concupiscence,' are delivered from this 
body of death, except by the Son of the virgin who believed 
the angel so as to be impregnated without concupiscence.? 
Cuap. 57. [xxix.]— TÀe good of marriage ; original sin seems to stand in 
sexual love; four different cases of the good and the evil use of matrimony. 
The good, then, of marriage lies not in the ardour of con- 
cupiscence, but in a certain legitimate and honourable means 
of indulging the ardour, adapted for the propagation of children, 
not for the gratification of lust. [What characterizes matri- 
mony is the regulated desire—voluntas—not the voluptuous 
extravagance—voluptas.]* That, therefore, which is recklessly 
excited in the members of this body of death, and endeavours 
to attract into itself the entire affection of our fallen state 
(neither arising nor subsiding at the bidding of the mind), is 
that evil of sin in which every man is born. When, however, 
it curbs its unlawful and corrupt desires, and applies itself 
simply to the temperate propagation and renewal of the 
human race, then ensues the proper use of wedlock, which 
produces human birth by the well-ordered conjunction of the 
sexes. Nobody, however, is born again in Christ’s body, 
unless he be previously born in the body of sin. But inas- 
much as it is an evil to make a bad use of a good thing, so 
is it a good to utilize a bad thing well These two ideas 
therefore of good and evil, and those other two of a good use 
and an evil «se, when they are duly combined together, pro- 
, duce four different conditions:—[1.] A man makes a good 
use of a good thing, when he dedicates his chastity to God; 
[2.] He makes a bad use of a good thing, when he dedicates 
his chastity to an idol; [3.] He makes a bad use of an evil 
thing, when he loosely gratifies his concupiscence by adultery ; 
[4.] He makes a good use of an evil thing, when he restrains 
his concupiscence by matrimony. Now, as it is better to 
make good use of a good thing than to make good use of an 
evil thing,—the use in both instances being good,—so “he 
that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well; but he that 


1 Gen. iii. 6. 2 Luke i. 38. 
* The sentence between the brackets occurs in none of the Mss. 


CHAP. LVIIL] PELAGIAN VIEW OF INFANT BAPTISM. 57 





giveth her not in marriage doeth better"! This question, 


indeed, I have treated at greater length, and more to the 
point, as God enabled me according to my humble abilities, 
in two works of mine,—one of them, On the Good of Marriage, 
and the other, On Holy Virginity. They, therefore, who extol 
the flesh and blood of a sinful creature, to the prejudice of the 
Redeemer’s flesh and blood, must not defend the evil of con- 
cupiscence through the good of marriage; nor should they, 
from whose infant age the Lord has inculcated in us a lesson 
of humility,” be proudly exalted by the error of others. He 
only was born without sin whom His virgin mother con- 
ceived without the embrace of a husband,—not by the con- 
cupiscence of the flesh, but by the chaste submission of her 
mind. She alone was able to give birth to One who should 
heal our wound, who brought forth the germ of a pure off- 
spring without the wound of sin. 

Cuap. 58. [xxx.]—In what respect the Pelagians regarded baptism as necessary 

Jor infants. 

Let us now examine more carefully, so far as the Lord 
enables us, that very chapter of the Gospel where He says, 
* Except a man be born again,—of water and the Spirit,—he 
shall not enter into the kingdom of God."* If it were not 
for the authority which this sentence has with them, they 
would not be of opinion that infants ought to be baptized at 
al. This is their comment on the passage: “Because He 
does not say, ‘ Except a man be born again of water and the 
Spirit, he shall not have salvation or eternal life, but He 
merely said, ‘ shall not enter into the kingdom of God, there- 
fore infants are to be baptized, to the intent that they may be 
with Christ in the kingdom of God, where they will not find 
entrance unless they are baptized. Should they die, however, 
even without baptism, in the state of infancy, they will have 
salvation and eternal life, seeing that they are not bound 
with any chain of sin.” Now in such a statement as this, 
the first thing that strikes one is, that they never explain 
where the justice is of separating from the kingdom of God 
that “image of God” which has no sin. Then, secondly, we 
ought to see whether the Lord Jesus, the one only true 

11 Cor. vii. 38. ? Matt. xviii. 4. 3 Luke i. 34, 38. 4 John iii. 3, 5. 


58 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. . [BOOK I. 





Teacher, has not in this very passage of the Gospel intimated, 
and indeed shown us, that it only comes to pass through the 
forgiveness of their sins that baptized persons reach the 
kingdom of God; although to persons of a right understand- 
ing, the words, as they stand in the passage, ought to be suffi- 
ciently explicit: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see 
the kingdom of God;"! and: * Except a man be born of water 
and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God."? 
For why should he be born again, unless to be renewed ? 
From what is he to be renewed, if not from some old condi- 
tion? From what old condition, but that in which “ our old 
man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be 
destroyed ?"? Or whence comes it to pass that “the image of 
God” enters not into the kingdom of God, unless it be that 
the impediment of sin prevents it? However, let us (as we 
said before) see, as earnestly and diligently as we are able, 
what is the entire context which belongs to the quotation 
which we have made out of the Gospel on the point in ques- 
tion. 
Cuap. 59. 

“There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a 
ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night, and 
sald unto Him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher 
come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou 
doest, except God be with him. Jesus answered and said 
unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be 
born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus 
saith unto Him, How can a man be born when he is old? 
can he enter the second time into his mothers womb, and 
be born? Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, 
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he can- 
not enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born 
of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is 
spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born 
again. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest 
the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and 
whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. 
Nicodemus answered and said unto Him, How can these 

! John iii, 3. tdohnuus B ous 3 Rom. vi. 6. 


CHAP. LX.] OPPOSED TO THE WORDS OF CHRIST. 61 





things be? Jesus answered and said unto him, Art thou 
a master of Israel and knowest not these things? Verily, 
verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify 
that we have seen; and ye receive not our witness. If I have 
told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye be- 
leve if I tell you of heavenly things? And no man hath 
ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, 
even the Son of man which is in heaven. And as Moses 
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,’ even so must the Son 
of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in Him should 
not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the 
world, that He gave His only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 
For God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the 
world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He 
that believeth on Him is not condemned; but he that be- 
lieveth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed 
in the name of the only-begotten Son of God. And this is 
the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men 
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were 
evil For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither 
cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But 
he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may 
be made manifest, that they are wrought in God"? Thus 
far the Lord's discourse wholly relates to the subject of our 
present inquiry ; from this point the sacred historian digresses 
to another matter. 


Cuap. 60. [xxxr. ]—Christ, the head and the body ; owing to the union of the 
natures in the person of Christ, He both remained in heaven, and walked 
about on earth ; how the one Christ could ascend to heaven; the one 
Christ is not only the head, but the body too. 

Now when Nicodemus understood not what was being told 
him, he inquired of the Lord how such things could possibly 
be. Let us look at what the Lord said to him in answer to 
his inquiry ; for of course, as He deigns to answer the question 
how these things can be, He will in fact tell us how spiritual 
regeneration can accrue to a man who springs from carnal 
generation. After noticing with a slight censure the ignorance 


1 Num. xxi. 9. 2 John iii. 1-21. 


58 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 


— 





of one who assumed a superiority over others as being a public 
teacher, and having blamed the unbelief of all persons who 
belonged to his class, for refusing to accept His witness to the 
truth, He went on to inquire and wonder whether, as He had 
told them about earthly things and had not gained their assent, 
they would believe Him when He discoursed about heavenly 
things. He then pursues the subject, and gives an answer 
such as others shouid believe—if these refused—to His own 
question, [and so indicates] how these mysteries could happen. 
“No man,” says He, * hath ascended up to heaven, but He 
that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which 
is in heaven"! Thus, He says in fact, shall happen the 
spiritual birth, —men, from being earthly, becoming heavenly ; 
and this result they can only obtain [so He seems to add] by 
being made members of me; so that he may ascend who 
descended,—no one ascending unless he first descended. All, 
therefore, who have to be changed and raised must meet to- 
gether in a union with Christ, so that the Christ who descended 
should Himself ascend, reckoning His body (that is to say, His 
Church) as nothing else than Himself,—that passage receiving 
its truest sense from Christ and the Church, * And they twain 
shall be one flesh ;"? concerning which very subject He ex- 
pressly said Himself, * So then they are no more twain, but 
one flesh."? To ascend, therefore, they would be wholly 
unable [out of Christ] since “no man hath ascended up to 
heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even the Son 
of man which is in heaven.”* For although, as the Son of 
man, He was formed on earth, yet He did not deem it un- 
worthy of that divinity, in which, while remaining in heaven, 
He came down to earth, to designate it by the name of the 
Son of man, as He dignified His flesh with the name of Son 
of God (thereby to prevent His two conditions being regarded 
as two Christs,—the one God, the other man ;* and to secure 
His being at once both God and man,— God, because * in the 
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 


1 John iii. 13. 2 Gen..ii. 24. 
3 Mark x. 8. 4 John iii. 13. 


? This was the error which was subsequently condemned in the heresy of 
Nestorius, 


CHAP. LXL] THE TWO NATURES OF THE ONE CHRIST. 61 





the Word was God ;"! and man, inasmuch as * the Word was 
made flesh and dwelt among us"?. By this means— by the 
difference between His divinity and His humiliation —He re- 
mained in heaven as Son of God, and walked on earth as Son 
of man; whilst, by that unity of His person which made His 
two substances one Christ, He also walked as Son of God on 
earth, and at the same time Himself remained in heaven as 
the Son of man. Faith, therefore, in more credible things 
arises from the belief of such things as are more incredible. 
For if His divine substance, though a far more distant object, 
and more sublime, owing to its incomparable diversity [from 
our human ideas], had ability so to take upon itself the nature 
of man on our account as to become one Person, and whilst 
appearing as Son of man on earth in the weakness of the 
flesh, was able to remain all the while in heaven through the 
divinity which assumed participation with the flesh, how much 
easier for our faith is it to suppose that fellow-men, who are 
His faithful saints, become one Christ with the Man Christ 
Jesus, so that, whilst all ascend by His grace and fellowship, 
the one Christ Himself ascends to heaven who came down 
from heaven? It is in this sense that the apostle says, “ As 
we have many members in one body, and although all the 
members of the body, being many, are but one body, so like- 
wiee-ie-Ghrt"? He did not say, “So also is Christ's "— 
meaning Christ's body, or Christ's members—but his words 
are, “So lbetoiSt 4s Christ,” thus calling the one Christ the 
[Church's] head and body. 


Cuar. 61. [xxxir.]— The serpent lifted up in the wilderness prefigured Christ 
suspended on the cross ; even infants themselves poisoned by the serpent's 
bite. 

The attainment of this great and wonderful dignity can 
only be accomplished by the remission of sins. Accordingly He 
goes on to say, “ And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the 
wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up ; that who- 
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal 
life.”* We know what at that time happened in the wilder- 
ness. Many were dying of the bite of serpents: the people 
then confessed their sins, and, through Moses, besought the 

1 John i. 1. ? John i. 14. $ 1 Cor. xii. 12. 4 John iii. 14, 15. 


62 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





Lord to take away from them the virulent infliction ; accord- 
ingly, Moses, at the Lord's command, lifted up a brazen serpent 
in the desert, and requested every one amongst the people 
that had been serpent-bitten to look Üowards the uplifted 
figure. When they did so they were immediately healed. 
What means the exalted serpent but the death of Christ, by 
that mode of expressing a sign, whereby the thing which is 
effected is signified by him that effects it? Now death came 
by the serpent, which persuaded man to commit the sin, owing 
to which he deserved to die. The Lord, however, transferred 
not to His own flesh sin, as the poison of the serpent, although 
He did transfer to it death, that the penalty without the guilt 
might transpire in the likeness of sinful flesh, whence, in the 
sinful flesh, both the guilt might be removed and the penalty. 
As, therefore, it then came to pass that whoever looked at the 
raised serpent was both healed of the poison and freed from 
death, so also now, whosoever conforms himself to the like- 
ness of the death of Christ by faith in Him and His baptism, 
is both liberated from sin by justification, and by resurrection 
from death. For this is meant when He says, * That who- 
soever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal 
life?! What necessity then could there be for an infant’s 
being conformed to the death of Christ by baptism, if he were 
not altogether poisoned by the bite of the serpent ? 


Cuap. 62. [xxxrni.] 


He then expresses Himself, by way of consequence, to the 
following effect: “God so loved the world, that He gave His 
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should 
not perish, but have everlasting life? Every infant, there- 
fore, was destined to perish, and to lose everlasting life, if 
through the sacrament of baptism he believed not in the only- 
begotten Son of God. Meanwhile, He comes not in such a 
way as to judge the world, but that the world through Him 
may be saved. This especially appears in the following clause, 
wherein He says, * He that believeth in Him is not con- 
demned ; although he that believeth not is condemned already, 
because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten 

! John iii. 15. ? John iii. 16. 


CHAP. LXIIL] , BAPTIZED INFANTS BELIEVERS. 63 





Son of God." In what class, then, do we place baptized infants 
but amongst believers, as the voice of the Catholic Church 
everywhere loudly and clearly asserts? Their rank, therefore, 
is amongst those who have believed ; for this [capacity] accrues 
to them by virtue of the sacrament and the guarantee of their 
sponsors, and on this account it follows that such as are not 
baptized are reckoned among those who have not believed. 
Now if they who are baptized are not condemned, these last, 
as not being baptized, are condemned. He adds, indeed: 
“But this is the condemnation, that light is come into the 
world, and men loved darkness rather than light"? Of what 
does He say, ^ Light is come into the world," if not of His own 
advent ? and without the sacrament of His advent, how are 
infants said to be in the light? And why should we not 
include even this fact in * men's love of darkness," that as 
they do not themselves believe, so they refuse to think that 
their infants ought to be baptized, although they are afraid of 
their incurring the death of the body? “In God," however, 
he declares that man's * works to be wrought, who cometh to 
the light, ? because he is quite aware that his justification 
results from no merits of his own, but from the grace of God. 
* For it is God," says the apostle, * who worketh in you both 
to wil and to do of His own good pleasure" * This then is 
the way in which spiritual regeneration is effected in all who 
come to Christ in their carnal state. He explained it Him- 
self, and pointed it out, when He was asked, How those things 
could be? He left it open to no man to settle such a question 
by human reasoning. There is no passage leading to Christ, 
no man can be reconciled to God, or can come to God, except 
through Christ. 


Cuar. 63. [xxxtv.]— The form, or rite, of baptism. Exorcism. 


What shall I say of the actual form of baptism? I only 
wish some one of those who espouse the contrary side would 
bring me an infant to be baptized. What does my exorcism 
do in that babe, if he be not firmly included in the devil’s 
family? The man who brought the infant would certainly 
have had to act as sponsor for him, for he could not answer for 

1 John iii. 18. 2 John iii. 19. 3 John iii. 21. * Phil. ii. 13. 


64 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. — [BOOK I. 





himself. How was it possible then for him to declare that he 
renounced the devil, if there was no devil in him? that he 
was converted to God, if he had never been averted from 
Him ? that he believed, besides other articles, in the forgive- 
ness of sins, if no sins were attributable to him? For my 
own part, indeed, if I thought that his opinions were opposed 
to this faith, I could not permit him even to bring the infant 
to the sacraments. Nor can I imagine with what face before 
men, or what mind before God, he can conduct himself in 
such a way. But I do not wish to say anything too severe. 
That a false and fallacious form of baptism should be admini- 
stered to infants, in which there might be the sound and 
semblance of something being done, but yet no remission of 
sins actually ensue, has been seen and allowed by some amongst 
them to be as abominable and hateful a thing as it was pos- 
sible to mention or conceive. Then, again, in respect of the 
necessity of baptism to infants, they admit that even infants 
stand in need of redemption,—a concession which is made in 
a short treatise written by one of their party,— but yet there 
is not found in this work any open admission of the forgive- 
ness of a single sin. According, however, to an intimation 
dropped in your letter to me, they now acknowledge, as you 
say, that a remission of sins takes place even in infants through 
baptism. No wonder; for it is impossible that redemption 
should be understood in any other way. .Their own words 
are these: * It is, however, not by reason of their original 
condition, but in their own proper actual life, after their birth, 
that they began to commit sin. 


CrAr. 64.—A twofold mistake respecting infants. 


You see how great a difference there is amongst ‘those 
whom I have been opposing at such length and persistency in 
this work,—one of whom has written the book which contains 
the points I have refuted to the best of my ability. You see, 
as I was saying, the important difference existing between 
such of them as maintain that infants are absolutely pure and 
free from all sin, whether original or actual; and those who 
suppose that from their very birth infants have contracted sins 
of their own, from which they need cleansing by baptism. 


? 


CHAP. LXV.] DIFFERENT VIEWS ABOUT INFANT NATURE. 65 





The latter class, indeed, by examining the Scriptures, and 
considering the authority of the whole Church as well as the 
form of the sacrament itself, have clearly discovered that by 
baptism remission of sins accrues to infants; but they are 
either unable or unwilling to allow that the sin which 
infants have is original sin. The former class, however, 
clearly observed (as they easily might) that in the very nature 
of man, which is open to the consideration of all men, the 
tender age of which we speak could not possibly commit any 
sin whatever in its own proper conduct; but, to avoid acknow- 
ledging original sin, they assert that in infants there is no sin 
at all Now in the truths which they thus severally maintain, 
it so happens that they first of all mutually agree with each 
other, and subsequently differ from us in no material aspect. 


For if the one party concede to the other that remission of | 


sins takes place in all infants which are baptized, whilst the 
other concedes to their opponents that infants (as infant- 
nature itself in the stillness of its silence even loudly pro- 
claims) have as yet contracted no sin in their own living, 
then both sides must agree in conceding to us, that nothing 
remains but original sin, which can be remitted in baptism. 


Cuap. 65. [xxxv.]—4n infants there are no sins actually committed by 
them. 
Will this point also be questioned, and must we spend any 
— time in discussing it, [namely,] to prove and show how that 
by their own will—without which there can be no sin aetually 
committed—infants could never commit an offence, whom all, 
for this very reason, are in the habit of calling innocent ? 
Does not their great weakness of mind and body, their perfect 
ignorance of things, their utter inability to obey a precept, 
the absence in them of all perception and impression of either 
natural or written law, the complete want of reason to impel 
them in the direction either of right or of wrong,—f[does not, 
I say, each one of these conditions of their life] proclaim and 
demonstrate the point before us by its silent and negative 
testimony much more expressively than any argument of ours ? 
The very palpableness of the fact must surely go a great way 
to persuade us of its truth ; for there is no place where I do 
4 E 











66 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





not find traces of what I say, so ubiquitous is the fact of 
which we are speaking,—clearer, indeed, to perceive than any- 
thing we can say to prove it. 


Cuap. 66.—Infants’ faults spring from their sheer ignorance ; their pranks, 
like those of simpletons, afford a natural pleasure and amusement. 

I should, however, wish any one who was wise on the 
point to tell me what sin he has seen or thought of in an infant 
fresh from its mother’s womb, for redemption from which he 
allows baptism to be already necessary ; or how much evil it 
has at this period of its life committed in its own mind or body. 
If it should happen to cry and to be tedious to its elders, I 
wonder whether my informant would ascribe this to the fault 
of the baby, and not rather to its infelicity. What, too, 
would he say to the fact that it is hushed from its very 
weeping by no appeal to its own reason, and by no prohibition 
of any one else? This, however, comes from the ignorance 
in which it is so deeply steeped, by reason of which, too, when 
it grows stronger, as it very soon does, it strikes its mother 
in its little passion, and often her very breasts which it sucks 
in its desire for food. Well, now, these small freaks are not 
only borne in very young children, but are actually liked,— 
and this, too, with an affection which is only natural, such as 
will feel pleasure from a laugh or a joke, even when seasoned 
with fun and nonsense by clever persons ; indeed, if the said 
joke were only felt in the way mentioned, the persons who 
indulge therein would not be laughed with as facetious, but 
derided as simpletons. Talking, indeed, of simpletons, we see 
how the silly fools called Moriones? are used for the amuse- 
ment of clever people ; and that they fetch higher prices than 
your clever folks when appraised for the slave market. So 
great, then, is the influence of mere natural feeling, and that 
on persons who are by no means fools, in producing amuse- 
ment at another's misfortune. Now, although a man may be 
amused by another man's silliness, he would still dislike to be 
a simpleton himself; and if the father, who gladly enough 
looks out for, and even provokes, silly pranks from his own 
merry little boy, were to foreknow that he would, when grown 

! Carnali, ? See above, chap. 32. 


CHAP. LXVIL] IGNORANCE AND FOLLY OF CHILDHOOD. OF 





up, turn out a mere ninny, he would no doubt think him a 
cause of a bitterer sorrow than if he lost him by death. So 
long, however, as there is a good hope of healthy faculties, 
and a belief that a clear intellect will come with increase of 
years, then it often happens that the saucy pranks of young 
children even on father and mother are thought not merely 
not wrong, but even agreeable and pleasant. No prudent man 
could possibly approve of a weakness, which not only fails, 
while prohibition is possible, to forbid in children such con- 
duct in word and deed as this, but even excites them to it, 
that they may enjoy the fun, and gratify the folly of their 
elders. For as soon as children are of an age to know their 
father and mother, they dare not use wrong words to either, 
unless permitted or bidden by either, or both; and even this 
can only be in the case of such young children as are now 
striving to lisp out words, and whose minds are just able to give 
motion to their tongue in such words as you please. Let us, 
however, consider rather that most perfect ignorance of new- 
born babes, out of which, as they advance in age, they come to 
that merely temporary period of stuttering folly and prattle,— 
on their road, as it were, to full knowledge and speech. 


Cuap. 67. [xxxvi.]—On the ignorance of infants, and whence it arises. 


Yes, let us consider that darkness of their rational intellect, 
by reason of which they are even completely ignorant of God, 
whose sacraments they actually struggle against, while being 
baptized. Now my inquiry is, When and whence came they 
to be immersed in this darkness? Is it then the fact that 
they incurred it all here, and in this life and conduct of theirs 
forgat God through over-much negligence, after a life of wisdom 
and religion in their mother’s womb? Let those say so who 
dare ; let them listen to [the nonsense] who like it ; let them 
believe it who can. I, however, am sure that none whose 
minds are not blinded by an obstinate adherence to a foregone 
conclusion ean possibly entertain such an opinion. Is there 
then no evil in ignorance,—nothing in it which needs to be 
purged and done away? What means that prayer: “ Re- 
member not the sins of my youth and of my ignorance ?"! 

1 Ps. xxiv. 7 (Sept.). 


68 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I 





For although those sins are more damnable which are know- 
ingly committed, yet if there were no sins of ignorance, we 
should not have read in Scripture such a sentence as entreats 
God not to remember the sins of one’s youth and one’s igno- 
rance. Seeing now that the soul of an infant fresh from its 
mother’s womb is still the soul of a human being,—nay, the 
soul of a rational creature,—and remembering that it is not 
only untaught, but even incapable of instruction, I ask why, 
or when, or whence, it was plunged into the shadows of that 
thick darkness in which it lies? If it is the way of man’s 
nature thus to begin its course, and if that nature is not at 
fault in this early stage, then why was not Adam created with 
such a nature? Why was Ae susceptible of a moral com- 
mandment ? and how had he intellectual ability to give 
names to his wife, and to all the animal creation? For of 
her he said, “She shall be called Woman;”? and in respect 
of the rest we read: “ Whatsoever Adam called every living 
creature, that was the name thereof"? Whereas the human 
being of whom we write, although Ae is ignorant where he is, 
what he is, by whom created, of what parents born, is already 
guilty of offence, and yet is incapable as yet of moral govern- 
ment, and is so completely involved and overwhelmed in a 
cloud of darkness and ignorance, that he cannot be aroused 
out of his sleepy condition, so as to perceive that these facts 
are at any rate set before him ; but a time must be patiently 
awaited, until he can shake off this overhanging drowsiness 
and intoxication, as it were, (not indeed in a single night, as 
even the heaviest drunken bout usually can be, but) only 
gradually, through the space of many months, and even years ; 
and until this be accomplished, we have to bear in little 
children so many things which we restrain in older persons, 
that we cannot enumerate them. Now, as touching this 
enormous amount of ignorance and weakness, [I ask] if it be 
true that infants have in this present life accumulated it as 
soon as they were born, where, when, how, have they become 
suddenly implicated in such darkness by the perpetration of 
some great iniquity ? 
! Gen. ii. 28. ? Gen. ii. 19. 


CHAP. LXVIIL] THE HELPLESSNESS OF INFANCY. 69 





Cuap. 68. [xxxvit.]—Zf Adam was not created of such a character as that in  \/ : 

which we are born, how is it that Christ, although free from sin, was born 

an infant and in weakness? The weakness of the flesh a penal thing, even in 

infants. 

Some one will ask, If this nature is not pure, but is faulty 
in its origin, since Adam was not created of such, how is 1 
that Christ, who is far more excellent, and was certainly born 4L 
of a virgin without any sin, appeared in such weakness, and 
came into the world in the state of infancy ? To this question 
our answer is as follows: Adam was not created in such a 
state, because, as no sin from a parent preceded him, he was 
not created in sinful flesh. We, however, are in such a con- 
dition, because by reason of his preceding sin we are born in 
sinful flesh ; while Christ was born in such a state, because, 
in order that He might condemn sin, He assumed the likeness 
of sinful flesh. The question, however, which we are now- 
discussing is not about Adam in respect of the size of his 
body, since he was not made an infant, but in the perfection 
of a full-grown man; and it may indeed be said that the 
beasts were thus created likewise,—nor was it owing to their 
sin that their young happened to be born so small in stature. 
Why indeed all.this came to pass we are not now asking. 
But the question before us has regard to the degree of man's 
intellectual power and his use of reason, by virtue of which 
Adam, who was capable of instruction, was able to understand 
God's moral law and commandment, and if he so willed, to 
observe and keep it without any difficulty ; whereas man is 
now born in such a state as to be utterly incapable of doing 
so, owing to his dreadful ignorance and weakness, not indeed 
of body, but of mind,—although we must all admit that in 
every infant there exists a rational soul of the self-same sub- 
stance (and no other) as that which belonged to the first man. 
Still this very infirmity of the flesh, complete as it is, clearly, 
in my opinion, points to a something, whatever it may be, that 
is penal It raises the doubt whether, if the first human 
beings had not sinned, they would have had children who 
could use neither tongue, nor hands, nor feet ; that they should 
be born in the diminutive state of infancy was perhaps abso- 
lutely necessary, owing to the limited capacity of the womb. 











— 


70 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK I. 





But, at the same time, it does not follow, because a rib is a 
small part of a man’s body, that God made [the first] man an 
infant wife, and then built her up intoa woman. The manner 
of her creation indeed suggests the reflection that God's al- 
mighty power was competent to make her children also, soon 
to be born to her, adult at once. 
Cuap. 69. [xxxvi1l.]—The ignorance and the infirmity of an infant. 

But not to dwell on this, that was at least possible to them 
which has actually happened to many animals, that although 
their young are born of diminutive stature, and without power 
either of increasing in bodily bulk or of advancing in mental 
faculty, the little creatures yet run about, and recognise their 
mothers, and require no external help or care when they want 
to suck, but with remarkable ease discover their mothers’ 
breasts themselves, although these are concealed from ordinary 
sight. A human being, on the contrary, at his birth is fur- 
nished neither with legs fit for walking, nor with hands able 
even to scratch; and unless their lips were actually applied 
to the breast by the mother, they would not know where to 
find it; and even when close to the nipple, they would, not- 
withstanding their desire for food, be more able to cry than 
to suck. It cannot be denied, then, that this utter helpless- 
ness of body fits in with their infirmity of mind; nor would 
Christ’s flesh have been “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” unless 
sinful flesh had been such that the rational soul is oppressed 
by it in the way we have described. And as for this rational 
soul, whether it has been derived from parents, or created in 
each case for the individual separately, or whether it be an 
inspiration from above, I now forbear from inquiring. 


Cuap. 70. [xxxix.]—4H ow far sin is done away in infants, also in adults, and 
what advantage results therefrom. No man, except by an ineffable miracle, 
is in this life entirely freed from all evil concupiscence. Sins of ignorance 
and infirmity. 

In infants it is certain that, by the grace of God, through 
His baptism who came in the likeness of sinful flesh, it is 
brought to pass that the sin of the flesh is done away. This 
result, however, is so effected, that the concupiscence which is 
diffused over and innate in this very living flesh of ours is not 
removed all at once, so as to exist in it no longer; but only 


- [n 


CHAP. LXX.] WHY CHRIST PARTOOK OF THIS STATE. 71 





that it might not be injurious to a man at his death, as it was 
inherent at his birth. For should an infant survive his bap- 

tism, and arrive at an age capable of obedience to a law, he 
- finds there a concupiscence to fight against, and, by God's help, 
to overcome, unless he has received His grace in vain, and is 
willing to be a reprobate. For not even to those who are 
of riper years is it given in their baptism (except, it may be, 
by an indescribable miracle of the almighty Creator), that the 
law of sin which is in their members, warring against the law 
of their mind, should be entirely extinguished, and cease to 
exist ; but that whatever of evil has been done, said, or thought 
by a man whilst his mind was subject to this concupiscence, 
and he its servant, should be abolished, and regarded as if it 
had never occurred ; whilst the concupiscence itself, however, 
(notwithstanding the loosening of the chain of sin by which 
the devil, operating through it, used to keep the soul in bondage, 
and although the barrier is destroyed which separated man 
from his Maker,) remains engaged in the contest in which we 
chasten our body and bring it into subjection; has to be re- 
laxed by being directed to lawful and necessary uses, or to be 
restrained by continence.’ But inasmuch as the Spirit of God, 
who knows so much better than we do all the past, and 
present, and future of the human race, foresaw and foretold 
that the life of man would be such that “no man living should 
be justified in God's sight;"? it happens that through ignorance 
or infirmity we do not exert all the powers of our will against 
this [evil concupiscence,] and so yield to it in the commission 
of even sundry unlawful things——becoming worse in propor- 
tion to the frequency and greatness of our surrender; and 
better, the less frequent and less complete our submission may 
be. The investigation, however, of the point in which we are 
now interested— whether there could possibly be (or whether 
in fact there is, has been, or ever will be) a man without sin 
in this present life, except Him who said, * The prince of this 
world cometh, and hath nothing in me” *—requires a much 
fuller discussion ; and the arrangement of the present treatise 
is such as to make us postpone the question to the commence- 
ment of another book. 

ah Cor, ike 24. 3 Ps. cxliii. 2. 3 John xiv. 30. 


72 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





BOOK SECOND. 


N WHICH AUGUSTINE ARGUES AGAINST SUCH AS SAY THAT IN THE PRESENT 
LIFE THERE ARE, HAVE BEEN, AND WILL BE, MEN WHO HAVE ABSOLUTELY 
NO SIN AT ALL. HE LAYS DOWN FOUR PROPOSITIONS ON THIS HEAD, AND 
TEACHES, —FIRST, THAT A MAN MIGHT POSSIBLY LIVE IN THE PRESENT LIFE 
WITHOUT SIN, BY THE GRACE OF GOD AND HIS OWN FREE WILL; HE NEXT 
SHOWS THAT NEVERTHELESS IN FACT THERE IS NO MAN WHO LIVES QUITE 
FREE FROM SIN IN THIS LIFE; THIRDLY, HE SETS FORTH THE REASON OF 
THIS,—BECAUSE THERE IS NO MAN WHO EXACTLY CONFINES HIS WISHES 
WITHIN THE LIMITS OF THE JUST REQUIREMENT OF EACH CASE, WHICH 
JUST REQUIREMENT HE EITHER FAILS TO PERCEIVE, OR IS UNWILLING TO 
CARRY OUT IN PRACTICE; IN THE FOURTH PLACE, HE PROVES THAT THERE 
IS NOT, NOR HAS BEEN, NOR EVER WILL BE, A HUMAN BEING—EXCEPT 
THE ONE MEDIATOR, CHRIST—WHO IS FREE FROM ALL SIN. 


Cuap. 1. [.]— What has thus far been dwelt on; and what is to be treated in 
this book. 
E have, my dearest Marcellinus, discussed at sufficient 
length, I think, in the former book the baptism of 
infants,—how that it is given to them not only for an entrance 
into the kingdom of God, but also for attaining salvation and 
eternal life, which none can have out of the kingdom of God,— 
and without that union with the Saviour Christ, to which He 
has redeemed us by His blood. I undertake in the present book 
to discuss and explain the question, Whether there lives in 
this world, or has yet lived, or ever will live, a man without 
any sin whatever, except “the one Mediator between God and 
man, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for 
all;"'—Aand this I will do with as much care and ability as He 
may Himself vouchsafe to me. And should there occasionally 
arise in this discussion, either casually or inevitably from the 
argument, any question about the baptism or the sin of infants, 
I must neither be surprised nor be induced to shrink from 
giving the best answer I can, at such emergencies, to whatever 
point challenges my attention. 
1] Tim. ii, 5, 6. 


CHAP. III.] THE SINLESSNESS OF CHRIST. 73 





Cuap. 2. [11.]—Some persons attribute too much to the freedom of man’s will ; 
its ignorance and infirmity. 

A solution is extremely necessary of this question about 
man’s life being unassailed by any surreptitious or sudden pre- 
occupation of sin, in consequence even of our daily prayers; 
for there are some poo who presume so much upon the 
absolute freedom of mans will, as to Suppose that it need not 





UI of the will to our own natural power. An inevitable 
consequence of this is, that we need not pray “not to enter 
into temptation,’—in other words, not to be overcome of tempta- ~ 
tion, either when it deceives and surprises us in our ignorance 
of its approach, or when it presses and importunes us in our 
weakness to resist it. Now how hurtful this is, and how 
fatally opposed to our salvation in Christ, and how violently 
adverse to the very religion with which we are impressed, and 
to the piety whereby we worship God, it cannot but be for 
us not to beseech the Lord for the attainment of such a 
benefit, but be rather led to think that petition of the Lord’s 
Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation," to be a vain and 
useless insertion, it is beyond my ability to express in words. 
Cnar. 3. [ur. ]-—/n what way God commands nothing impossible. Works of 
mercy means of wiping out sins. 

Now these people imagine that they say a sharp thing (as 
if none among us knew anything like it) to this effect, that 
“if we have not the will, we commit no sin; nor would God 
command man to do what was impossible for human volition.” 
But they do not see this important fact, that in order to over- 
come certain things, which are the objects either of an evil 
desire or an ill-conceived fear, men need the strenuous efforts, 
and sometimes even all the energies, of the will, which [the 
Holy Ghost] foresaw that we should only imperfectly employ 
in every instance, when He willed so true an utterance to be 
spoken by the prophet: “In Thy sight shall no man living be 
justified”? The Lord, foreseeing that such would be our 
character, was pleased to provide and endow with efficacious 
virtue certain healthful remedies against the guilt and bonds 
even of sins committed after baptism,—for instance, the works 

1 Matt. vi. 18. 2 Ps. cxliii. 2. 


74 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





of mercy,—as when he says: “ Forgive, and ye shall be for- 
given; give, and it shall be given unto you"! For who 
could quit this life with amy hope of obtaining eternal salva- 
tion, with that sentence impending: * Whosoever shall keep 
the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of 
all,”? if it did not soon after follow: “So speak ye, and so do, 
as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty : for he shall 
have judgment without mercy that hath showed no mercy; 
and mercy rejoiceth against judgment ? "? 

Cuar. 4. [1v. ]-- Concupiscence, how far in us; the baptized are not injured by 


concupiscence, but only by consent therewith ; the three last petitions of the 
Lord’s Prayer. 


Concupiscence, therefore, as the law of sin which remains 
in the members of this body of death, is born with infants ; 
in baptized infants it is deprived of guilt; it is left for the 
struggle [of life]; such infants as die before the struggle 
begins it does not pursue with any condemnation ; unbaptized 
infants it binds as guilty and as children of wrath, and even 
if they die in infancy it involves them in condemnation. In 
baptized adults, however, endowed with reason, whatever con- 
sent their mind gives to this concupiscence for the commis- 
sion of sin is an act of their own will After all sins have 
been blotted out, and that guilt has been cancelled which by 
nature* bound men in a conquered condition, concupiscence 
still remains,—but not to hurt in any way those who yield no 
assent to the commission of improper actions,—and it will 
remain until death is swallowed up in victory, and until, in 
that perfection of peace, nothing is left to be conquered. Such, 
however, as yield assent to it for the commission of sinful 
deeds, it holds as guilty still; and unless, through the medicine 
of repentance, and through the works of mercy, by the inter- 
cession in our behalf of the heavenly High Priest, these sins 
be healed, then [this concupiscence] conducts us to the second 
death and utter condemnation. It was on this account that 
the Lord, when instructing us in prayer, advised us, besides 
other petitions, to say: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive 
our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us 


1 Luke vi. 37, 38. a Ea 11-10. S. Jas; MA 
* Originalited, i.e. owing to birth-sin. 





CHAP. V.] REMEDIES AGAINST CONCUPISCENCE. 755. 





from evil"! For evil remains in our flesh, not by reason of 
the nature in which man was created by divine power and 
wisdom, but owing to that fault into which he fell of his own 
will and in which, since he has lost its powers of choice, he 
is not healed with the same facility of will as that with 
which which he was wounded. Of this evil it is the apostle : 
says: “I know that in my flesh dwelleth no good thing ;"? 
and it is likewise to the same evil that he counsels us to give 
no obedience, when he says: * Let not sin therefore reign in 
your mortal body, to obey the lusts thereof"? When, there- 
fore, we have by an unlawful inclination of our will yielded 
assent to the lustful desires of the flesh, we say, with a view 
to the cure of this fault, * Forgive us our debts;"* and we 
at the same time apply the remedy of a work of mercy, in 
that we add, “ As we forgive our debtors.” When, however, 
we yleld no such assent, we pray for assistance, and say, 
“Lead us not into temptation,"—not that God ever Himself 
tries any one with such kind of temptation, * for God cannot 
be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man ;"? [but 
the purport of our prayer is,] that whenever we happen to feel 
the rising of temptation from our concupiscence, we should | 
not be deserted by His help, in order that thereby we may be 
strong enough to conquer, and not be carried away by the 
attraction of lust. We then add our request for that which is 
to be perfected at the last, * when mortality shall be swallowed 
up of life;"? “But deliver us from evil"' For then there 
will exist no longer a concupiscence with which we must 
struggle, and from which we must be bidden to withhold our 
consent. The whole substance, accordingly, of these three 
petitions may be thus briefly expressed: “Forgive us those 
things in which we have been drawn aside by concupiscence ; 
help us against the temptations of concupiscence; take away 
from us all concupiscence.” 
Cuap. 5. [v.]— The will of man requires the help of God. 

Now for the commission of sin we get no help from God ; 
but to do justly, and to fulfil the law of righteousness in every 
part thereof, we have no ability whatever, except as God shall 


1 Matt. vi. 12, 18. ? Rom. vii. 18. 3 Rom. vi. 12. * Matt. vi. 12. 
SUUS L 19. 6 2 Cor. v. 4. 7 Matt. vi. 13. 


76 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II 





help us. For as the bodily eye is not assisted by the light 
that it may turn away therefrom shut and averted, but gets 
the assistance of the light in order that it may see,—being 
wholly incapable of vision without such help,—so God, who is 
the light of the inner man, aids our mental sight, in order 
that we, do some good, not after our own, but according to 
His righteousness. Whenever we turn away from Him, 
it is our own act; we then show carnal wisdom, we then 
give our consent to the unholy promptings of fleshly con- 
cupiscence. When we turn to Him, God helps us; when we 
turn away from Him, He forsakes us. But then He helps 
us even to turn to Him,—an action which that [divine] light 
of which we speak certainly does not show to the eyes of our 
body. When, therefore, He commands us in the words, “ Turn 
ye unto me, and I will turn unto you,"! and we say to Him, 
“Turn us, O God of our salvation," and again, “Turn us, 
O God of hosts;"? what else do we in fact say than, * Give 
us what Thou commandest ?"* When, also, He commands us, 
saying, “ Understand now, ye simple among the people," and 
we say to Him, * Give me understanding, that I may learn 
Thy commandments ;”° what else do we really say than, 
“Give us what Thou commandest ?" So when He commands 
us, saying, “Go not after thy lusts,”” and we say to Him, 
“We know that no man can be continent, except God enable 
him;"? what do we indeed say to Him, but “Give us, O 
Lord, what Thou commandest ?" When, again, He commands 
us, saying, “Keep judgment, and do justice,'? and we say to 
Him, “Teach me Thy judgments, O Lord;"? what else do 
we say in fact than, “ Give us, Lord, what Thou commandest?" 
In like manner, when He says: “Blessed are they which 
hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled,” 
from whom ought we to seek for the meat and drink of 
righteousness, but from Him who promises His fulness to 
such as hunger and thirst after it ? 


1 Zech. i. 8. aS lex vies, S Ps, Ixxx. 8; 4. 

* Da quod jubes ; see the Confessions, Book x. chap. 26. 

5 Ps. xciv. 8. 6 Ps. cxix. 73. 7 Ecclus. xviii. 30. 
5 Wisd. viii. 21. Vise L 10 Ps, cxix. 108. 


! Matt. v. 6. 


CHAP. VL] THE HEART'S RESPONSE TO GOD’S COMMAND. TT 





Cuap. 6.— Wherein the Pharisee sinned when he thanked God ; to God's 
grace must be added the exertion of our own will. 


Let us then refuse to lend an ear or to give heed to those 
who assert that, after the choice of our own free will has been 
accepted, we are not bound to pray that God would help us 
not to sin. By such darkness as this even the Pharisee was 
not blinded; for although he erred in thinking that he needed 
no addition to his righteousness, and supposed himself to be 
endowed with an absolute sufficiency thereof, he yet thanked 
God that he was not “like other men, unjust, extortioners, ' 
adulterers, or even as the publican; for he fasted twice in 
the week, he gave tithes of all that he possessed"! He 
wished, indeed, for no addition to his own righteousness; but 
then, by giving thanks to God, he allowed that all he had he 
had in fact received from Him; and yet he was not approved, 
both because he asked for no further aliments of righteous- 
ness, as if he already had enough, and because he arrogantly 
and ostentatiously preferred himself to the publican, who 
was hungering and thirsting after righteousness. What, then, 
is to be said of those who, whilst acknowledging that they 
have no righteousness, or no fulness thereof, presume to pray 
for its acquisition from themselves simply, not from their 
Creator in whom lies its store and fountain? And yet this 
is not à question about prayers alone; there must be super- 
added a consideration of the efficacy of our own will in its 
co-operation [with prayer] God is said to be * our Helper;”? 
but nobody can be Aelped who does not make some effort of 
his own accord. For God does not work our salvation in us 
as if we were mere stones, without sensibility, or creatures 
in whose nature He had placed neither reason nor will Why, 
however, He helps one man, but not another; or why one man 
so much, and another not to the same extent; or why one 
man in one way, and another in another way,—are points 
which He reserves to Himself according to the method of His 
own most secret judgment, and to the excellency of His 
power. 

1 Luke xviii. 11, 12. 3$ ps, xL 17, 1xx. 5. 


78 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





Cuap. 7. [vi.]—Four questions on the perfection of righteousness : (1.) Whether 
a man can be without sin in this life. 


Now those who aver that a man can exist in this life 
without sin, must not be opposed all out of hand with incau- 
tious temerity ; for if we should deny the possibility, we 
should derogate both from man’s free will, who in his wish 
desires this [sinlessness], and from the power or mercy of God, 
who effects it by His help. But it is one question, whether 
there could exist such a sinless man; and another question, 
whether he does exist. Again, it is one question, why (on 
the supposition of the possibility of such a man’s existence, 
but in face of the fact that there is none such) he does not 
exist; and another question, whether such a man as had never 
sinned at all, not only is in existence, but also has been able 
to exist [at any former time], or could exist [at any future 
time]. Now, if in the order of this fourfold set of interroga- 
tive propositions, I were asked, [1s¢,] Whether it be possible 
for a man in this life to be without sin? I should allow the 
possibility, through the grace of God and the man’s own free 
will; for I should have no doubt that the free will itself is 
ascribable to God’s grace,—in other words, has its place amongst 
the gifts of God,—not only as to its existence, but also in 
respect of its goodness; that is to say, [it is a gift of God] 
that it applies itself to doing the commandments of God. 
Thus it is that God’s grace not only shows a man what he 
ought to do, but also gives him such assistance as secures the 
possibility of that being done which His grace points out to 
be done. “ What indeed have we that we have not received ?”* 
Whence Jeremiah says: “I know, O Lord, that the way of 
man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct 
his steps"? Accordingly, when in the Psalms one says to 
God, “Thou hast commanded me to keep Thy precepts dili- 
gently,” * he at once adds a disclaimer of his own ability, and 
only wishes to be able to keep these precepts: “O that my 
ways,” says he, “were directed to keep Thy statutes! Then 
should I not be ashamed, when I have respect to all Thy com- 
mandments.” * Now who ever wishes for what he has already 
so entirely in his own power, that he requires no further help 

11 Cor, iv. 7. 3 Jer. x. 28. 9 Ps, cxix. 4. * Ps, cxix, b, 6. 








CHAP. VIII.] MAN'S CO-OPERATION WITH GOD'S GRACE. 19 





for effecting his purpose? To whom, however, he should 
. look for the fulfilment of his wish,—not to fortune, or fate, or 
any one else but God,—he shows with sufficient clearness in 
the following words, where he says: “ Order my steps in Thy 
word; and let not any iniquity have dominion over nie"! 
From the thraldom of this execrable dominion they are libe- 
rated, to whom, on their receiving Him, the Lord Jesus gave 
power to become the sons of God? From so horrible a 
tyranny were they to be freed, to whom He says, “If the Son 
shall make you free, then shall ye be free indeed"? From 
these and many other like testimonies, I cannot doubt that 
God has laid no impracticable command on man; and that, by 
God's grace and help, everything which He commands is able 
to be brought to good effect. In this way may a man, if he > 
pleases, be without sin by the assistance of God. 


Cuap. 8. [vi1.]—Second question: Whether there is in this world a man 
without sin. 


If, however, I am asked the second question which I have 
suggested,— whether there be a sinless man,—I believe there 
is no such person. For I have perfect confidence in the 
Scripture, which says: “Enter not into judgment with Thy ~ 
servant ; for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” * 
There is therefore need of the mercy of God, which “ rejoiceth 
against judgment," * and which that man shall not obtain who 
displays it not in his own conduct And whereas the pro- 
phet says, “I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the 
Lord, and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my heart,'" he yet 
immediately adds, * For this shall every one that is godly 
pray unto Thee in an acceptable time." ? — * Every one;’—not 
indeed every sinner, but every saint; for it is the voice of 
saints which says, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us"? - Accordingly we read, 
in the Apocalypse of the same Apostle John, of *the hundred 
and forty and four thousand” saints, “which were not defiled 
with women; for they continued virgins: and in their mouth 
was found no guile; for they are without fault." ? “Without 

1-Ps. cxix. 183, 2 John i. 12. 3 John viii. 36. + Ps) exiin: 


2. 
5 Jas, ii. 13. 6 Jas. ii. 18. 7 Ps. xxxii. 5. 8 Ps, xxxii. 6. 
91 John i. 8. 10 Rev, xiv. 3-5. 


80 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK rr. 





fault,” indeed, they no doubt are, because they really and 
truly enough found fault in themselves; and “in their mouth 
was discovered no guile or deception, because if they said they 
had no sin, they deceived themselves, and the truth was not 
in them;”! and of course, where the truth was not, there 
would be lying and guile. When a righteous man begins a 
statement by accusing himself, he verily utters no falsehood. 


Cuap. 9.—The beginning of renewal ; resurrection called regeneration ; they 
are the sons of God who lead lives suitable to newness of life. 


And hence in the passage, * Whosoever is born of God 
doth not commit sin, and cannot commit sin, for His seed 
remaineth in him,"? and in every other passage of like im- 
port, they find much to deceive themselves by an inadequate 
consideration of the [gist of the] Scriptures; for they fail to 
observe that men severally become sons of God when they 
begin to live in newness of spirit, and to be renewed as to 
the inner man after the image of Him that created them? 
For it is not from the moment of a man's baptism that all his 
old infirmity is destroyed. Renovation rather begins with the 
remission of all his sins, and so far as he who is now wise 
shows spirituality of wisdom. All things else, indeed, are 
accomplished in hope, with the view of their being also real- 
ized in fact) even to the renewal of the very body in that 
better state of immortality and incorruption with which we 
shall be clothed at the resurrection of the dead. For even 
this the Lord calls a regeneration, —though, of course, not such 
as occurs through baptism, but still a regeneration wherein 
that which is now begun in the spirit shall be brought to 
perfection also in the body. "In the regeneration,” says He, 
"when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of His glory, 
ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the. twelve 
tribes of Israel"? For however entire and full be the remis- 
sion of sins which takes place in baptism, there is yet con- 
tinually going on an entire and full change of the man towards 
his everlasting renovation. I do not mean the change in his 
body, which is most clearly tending evermore to the old cor- 
ruption and to death, after which there is to be a renewal, 


*" 11John i. 8. * 1 John iii. 9. 3 See Col. iii. 10. 
* Donec etiam in re fiant. 5 Matt. xix. 28. 








CHAP. X.] THE RESURRECTION A REGENERATION. 81 





which shall consist of an absolutely perfect newness of condi- 
tion. I therefore now omit consideration of the body. Tak- 
ing, however, the soul, which is the inner man, [the change 
which it is undergoing is, I say, a progressive one; for] if it 
were a perfect renewal thereof which takes place in baptism, 
the apostle would not say: * But though our outward man 
perishes, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”* Now, 
undoubtedly, he who is renewed day by day is not as yet 
wholly renewed ; and inasmuch as he is not yet wholly re- 
newed, he is so far in his old state. Since, then, men, even 
after they are baptized, are still in some degree in their old 
condition, they are on that account also still children of the 
world; but inasmuch as they are also admitted into a new 
state, that is to say, by the full and perfect remission of their — 
sins [in baptism], and in so far as they are spiritually-minded, 
and cherish a disposition suitable to that spiritual mind, they 
are the children of God.  Internally we put off the old man 
and put on the new; for we then and there lay aside lying, 
and speak truth, and [cultivate] those other qualities wherein 
the apostle makes to consist the putting off of the old man 
and the putting on of the new, which after God is created in 
righteousness and true holiness.” Now it is men who are 
already baptized and faithful whom he exhorts to do all this, — 
an exhortation which would be unsuitable to them, if the 
absolute and perfect change had been already made in their 
baptism; and yet [in one sense] made it was, since we were 
then actually saved; for “He saved us. by the laver of re- 
generation"? In another passage, however, he tells us how 
this took place. “Not they only," says he, “but ourselves 
also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we our- 
selves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to 
wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by hope: 
but hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why 
doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, 
then do we with patience wait for it."* 


Cuap. 10. [virr.]— Perfection, when to be realized. 
Our full adoption, then, as children, is to happen at the re- 
1 2 Cor. iv. 16. 2 Eph. iv. 24. $T nmm 5 4 Rom. viii. 23-25, 
4 E 


82 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





demption of our body. It is therefore the first-fruits of the 
Spirit which we now possess, whence we are already really 
become the children of God ; for the rest, indeed, as it 1s by 
hope that we are saved and renewed, so [thus far] are we the 
children of God. But inasmuch as we are not yet actually 
saved, we are for that reason not yet fully renewed, nor yet 
fully also sons of God, but children of this world. We are 
therefore advancing in renewal and holiness of life, in that we 
are children of God, and hereby also we cannot commit sin. 
[And this progress in holiness, with its attendant inability to 
sin, will go on] until our whole condition be changed,—even 
that which keeps us still children of this world ; for it is owing 
to this [remainder of evil in us] that we are even yet able to 
commit sin. Hence it comes to pass that “ whosoever is born 
of God doth not commit sin ;”* and “if we were to say that 
we have no sin, we should deceive ourselves, and the truth 
would not be in us"? There shall be then an end put to the 
state within us which keeps us children of the flesh and of 
the world ; whilst that other condition shall be perfected 
. which makes us the children of God, and renews us by His 
Spirit. Accordingly the same [Apostle] John says, “ Beloved, 
now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what 
we shall be"? Now what means this variety in the ex- 
pressions, * now are we,” and “what we shall be,” but this—we 
are in hope, we shall be in reality? For he goes on to say, 
* We know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, 
for we shall see Him as He is"* We have therefore even 
now begun to be like Him, as we have the first-fruits of the 
Spirit ; but yet even now we are unlike Him, by reason of the 
old nature which leaves its remains in us. In as far, then, as 
we are like Him, in so far are we, by the regenerating Spirit, 
sons of God ; but in as far as we are unlike Him, in so far are 
we the children of the flesh and of this world. On the one 
side, we cannot commit sin; but, on the other, if we say that 
we have no sin, we only deceive ourselves. [And so it must 
be,] until our entire state pass into the adoption, and there be 
not a sinner more, and you look for his place and find it not 


11 John iii. 9. ? 1 John i. 8. 3 1 John iii. 2. 
41 John iii. 2. 5 Ps, xxxvi. 10. 


CHAP. XI.] PROGRESS TOWARD PERFECTION. 83 





Cuar. 11. [1x.]—An objection of the Pelagians—W. hy does not a righteous man 
beget a righteous man ?! 


In vain, then, do some of them argue: “Since the sinner 
begat a sinner, so that the guilt of this birth-sin must in his 
infant son be done away by his receiving baptism, in like 
manner ought the righteous man to have begotten a righteous 
son.” Just as if a man begat children in the flesh by reason 
of his righteousness, and not because he is moved thereto by 
the concupiscence which is in his members, and because the 
law of sin is applied by the law of his mind to the purpose of 
procreation. His begetting children, therefore, shows that he 
still retains the old nature among the children of this world ; 
it does not arise from the fact a his progress to newness df 
life among the children of God. For “the children of this 
world ENG and are given in marriage], beget children and 
are begotten.”? And their offspring is like Moms 5 108 
“ that sine is born of the flesh is flesh."?. Only the children 
of God, however, are righteous ; but in so far as they are the 
children of God, they do not carnally beget, because it is of 
the Spirit, and not of the flesh, that they are themselves be- 
gotten. But as many of them as become parents, beget 
children from the circumstance that they have not yet put off 
the entire remains of their old nature in exchange for the 
perfect renovation which awaits them. It follows, therefore, 
that every son who is born in this old and infirm condition of 
his father’s nature, must needs himself partake of the same 
old and infirm condition. In order, then, that he may be be- 
gotten again, he must also himself be renewed by the Spirit 
through the remission of sin ; and if this change does not take 
place in him, his righteous father will be of no use to him. 
For it is by the Spirit that he is righteous, but it is not by the 
Spirit that he begat his son. On the other hand, if this 
change does accrue to him, he will not be prejudiced or 
damaged by having an unrighteous father: for it is by the 
grace of the Spirit that he has passed into the hope of the 
eternal regeneration ; whereas it is owing to his carnal mind 
that his father has wholly remained in the old nature. 


1 [See below, c. 25 ; also De Nuptiis, i. 18 ; also contra Julianum, vi. 5.] 
2 Luke xx. 34, 3 John iii. 6. 


84 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





Cuap. 12. [x.]—He reconciles some passages of Scripture ; in Noah, Daniel, 
and Job, three classes of men are represented. 


The statement, therefore, “ He that is born of God sinneth 
not," is not contrary to the passage in which it is declared by 
those who are born of God, “ If we say that we have no sin, 
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"? For how- 
ever complete may be a man's present hope, and however real 
may be his renewal by spiritual regeneration in that part of 
his nature, he still, for all that, carries about a body which is 
corrupt, and which presses down his soul; and so long as this 
is the case, one must distinguish even in the same individual 
what is the tendency of each several action, and from what 
source it is said to arise. Now, I suppose it is not easy to 
find in God's Scripture so weighty a testimony of holiness 
given of any man as that which is written of His three 
servants, Noah, Daniel, and Job, whom the Prophet Ezekiel 
describes as the only men able to be delivered from God's 
impending wrath? In these three men he no doubt prefigures 
three classes of mankind to be delivered: in Noah, as I sup- 
pose, are represented righteous leaders of nations, by reason 
of his government of the ark as a type of the Church ; in 
Daniel, men who are holy in continence ; in Job, those who 
are holy in wedlock ;—to say nothing of any other view which 
may be entertained of the passage, but which it is unnecessary 
for me now to consider. It is, at any rate, clear from this 
testimony of the prophet, and from other inspired statements, 
how eminent were these worthies in righteousness. Yet no 
man must be led by any statement in their history to say, for 
instance, that there is no sin in drunkenness, although so good 
a man as one of these was surprised into it; for we read that 
Noah was once drunk! but God forbid that it should be 
thought that he was an habitual drunkard. | 

Cur. 13.—A subterfuge of the Pelagians. 

Daniel, indeed, after the prayer which he poured out before 
God, actually says respecting himself, * Whilst l was praying 
and confessing my sins, and the sins of my people, before the 
Lord my God.”* This is the reason, if I am not mistaken, 


1 ] John iii. 9. 2 1 John i. 8. 3 Ezek. xiv. 14. 
4 Gen. ix. 21. 5 Dan. ix. 20. 


CHAP. XIV.] REPRESENTATIVE MEN IN SCRIPTURE. 85 





why in the above-mentioned Prophet Ezekiel a certain most 
haughty person is asked, * Art thou then wiser than Daniel?"! 
Nor on this point can that be possibly said which some con- 
tend for in opposition to the Lord's Prayer: * For although 
that prayer was offered by the apostles, after they became 
holy and perfect, and had no sin whatever of their own, yet it 
was not in behalf of their own selves, but of imperfect and 
still sinful men that they said, * Forgive us our debts, as we 
also forgive our debtors.” They used the word owr, they say, 
*in order to show that in one and the same body are con- 
tained both those who still have sins, and themselves, who are 
now altogether free from sin.” Now this certainly cannot be 
said in the case of Daniel, who being (as I suppose) a prophet 
endued with a foresight of this presumptuous opinion, after so 
often saying in his prayer, “ We have sinned,” put no such 
construction on his words or their purport, as if we must sup- 
pose him to have said, * Whilst I was praying and confessing 
to my God, the sins of my people," [with no reference to his 
own ;] nor yet did he confound the distinct objects of his sup- 
plication, so as to leave it uncertain whether he had in view 
the fellowship of one body by using such words as, While I 
was confessing owr sins to the Lord my God; but he ex- 
presses himself in language. so distinct and precise, as if he 
were full of the distinction himself, and wanted above all 
things to commend it to our notice: “ Jy sins,” says he, “and 
the sins of my people" Who can gainsay such evidence as 
this, but he who is more pleased to defend what he thinks 
than to find out what he ought to think ? 


CuaAr. 14.—Job was not without sin. 


But let us see what Job has to say of himself, after God’s 
great testimony of his righteousness. “I know of a truth," 
he says, “that it is so: for how shall a mortal man be just 
before the Lord? For if He should enter into judgment 
with him, he would not be able to obey Him.”? And shortly © 
afterwards he asks: “ Who shall resist His judgment? Even 
if I should seem righteous, my mouth will speak profanely."? 
And again, further on, he says: * I know He will not leave 

! Ezek. xxviii. 3. 3 Job ix. 2, 3 (Sept.). 8 Vers. 19, 20. 


86 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK IL. 





me unpunished. But since I am ungodly, why have I not 
died? If I should wash myself with snow, and be purged 
with clean hands, thou hadst thoroughly stained me with 
filth.” In another of his discourses he says: “ For Thou hast 
written evil things against me, and hast compassed me with 
the sins of my youth ; and Thou hast placed my foot in the 
stocks. Thou hast watched all my works, and hast inspected 
the soles of my feet, which wax old like a bottle, or like a 
moth-eaten garment. For man that is born of a woman hath 
but a short time to live, and is full of wrath; like a flower 
that hath bloomed, so doth he fall; he is gone like a shadow, 
and continueth not. Hast Thou not taken account even of 
him, and caused him to enter into judgment with Thee? 
For who is pure from uncleanness? Not even one; even 
should his life last but a day."? Then a little afterwards he 
says: * Thou hast numbered all my devices and necessities ; 
and not one of my sins hath escaped Thee. Thou hast sealed 
up my transgressions in a bag, and hast marked whatever I 
have done unwillingly."? See how Job confesses his sins, 
and says indeed how sure he is that there is none righteous 
before the Lord. So he is sure of this also, that if we say we 
have no sin, the truth is not in us. While, therefore; God 
bestows on him His high testimony of righteousness, according 
to the standard of human conduct, Job himself, taking his 
measure from that rule of righteousness, which, as well as he 
ean, he beholds in God, knows of a truth that so it is; and 
he goes on at once to say, “How shall a mortal man be just 
. before the Lord? For if He should enter into judgment with 
him, he would not be able to obey Him ;" in other words, if, 
when challenged to judgment, he wished to show that there 
was nothing in him which He could condemn, he would be 
unable to comply with His injunctions, since he misses even 
that obedience which might enable him to obey Him who 
teaches that sins ought to be confessed. Accordingly [the 
Lord] rebukes certain men, saying to them, * Why will ye 
contend with me in judgment ?”* This [the Psalmist] averts, 
saying, “ Enter not into judgment with Thy servant; for in 


! Job ix. 30 (Sept.). ? Job xiii. 26, to xiv. 5 (Sept.). 
3 Job xiv. 16, 17 (Sept.). 4 Jer. ii. 29. 


CHAP. XV.] CARNAL GENERATION SINFUL. 87 





Thy sight shall no man living be justified"! In accordance 
with which, Job also asks: “ For who shall resist His judgment ? 
Even if I should seem righteous, my mouth will speak pro- 
fanely ;" which means: If, contrary to His judgment, I should 
call myself righteous, when His perfect rule of righteousness 
proves me to be unholy, then of a truth my mouth would 
speak profanely, because it would speak against the truth of 
God. 
Cnr. 15.—Carnal generation condemned on account of original sin. 

He sets forth the absolute weakness, or rather condemna- 
tion, of our carnal generation from the transgression of original 
sin, when, treating of his own sins, he shows, as it were, their 
very causes, and says that “man that is born of a woman 
hath but a short time to live, and is full of wrath" Of what - 
wrath, but of that in which all are involved, as the apostle 
says, “We are by nature,” that is, by our original sin, “children 
of wrath,"? inasmuch as all are children of carnal desire 
and of the world? He further shows that to this wrath also 
pertains, as its consequence, the death of man. For after 
saying, * Hath but a short time to live, and is full of wrath," 
he added, * Like a flower that hath bloomed, so doth he fall; 
he is gone like a shadow, and continueth not" He then 
subjoins: * Hast Thou not caused him to enter into judgment 
with Thee? For who is pure from uncleanness ? Not even 
one; even should his life last but a day.” In these words he 
in fact says, Thou hast thrown upon man, short-lived though 
he be, the care of entering into judgment with Thee. For 
how brief soever be his life, —even if it last but a single day, 
—he could not possibly be clean of filth; and therefore with 
perfect justice must he come under Thy judgment. Then, 
when he says again, “Thou hast numbered all my devices 
and necessities, and not one of my sins hath escaped Thee: 
Thou hast sealed up my transgressions in a bag, and hast 
marked whatever I have done unwillingly ;’ is it not clear 
enough that even those sins are justly imputed to a man 
which he commits through no allurement of mere pleasure, 
‘but for the sake of avoiding some trouble, or pain, or death ? 
Now these sins, too, are said to be committed under some 

1 Ps. cxliii. 2. ? Eph. ii. 3. 


88 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK IL. 





stress of necessity, whereas they ought all to be overcome by 
the love and pleasure of righteousness. Again, what. he said 
in the clause, * Thou hast marked whatever I have done 
unwillingly,” may evidently be connected with what was 
said [by the apostle] : á B or what I would, that I do not; but 
what I hate, that do I.” 


Cnr. 16.—Job foresaw that Christ would come to suffer ; the way of humility 
in those that are perfect. 


Now it is remarkable? that the Lord Himself, after 
bestowing on Job the testimony which is expressed in Serip- 
ture, that is, by the Spirit of God, *In all the things which 
happened to him he sinned not with his lips before the Lord,” ? 
did yet afterwards speak to him with a rebuke, as Job himself 
tells us: * Why do I yet plead, being admonished, and hearing 
the rebukes of the Lord ?"* Now no man is fairly rebuked 
unless there be in him something which deserves rebuke. 
[x] And what sort of rebuke is that which is understood 
to proceed from the person of Christ our Lord? He recounts 
to him all the operations which indicated His divine power, 
rebuking him under this idea; so that He seems to say to 
him, * Canst thou effect all these mighty works as I can?" 
But to what purpose is all this but to teach Job wisdom (for 
this instruction was divinely inspired into him, that he might 
foreknow Christ's coming to suffer), that he might understand 
how patiently he ought to endure all that he went through, 
since Christ, although, when He became man for us, He was 
absolutely without sin, and although as God He possessed so 
great power, did for all that by no means refuse to obey even 
to the suffering of death? When Job understood this with a 
purer intensity of heart, he added to his own answer these 
words: "I used before now to hear of Thee by the hearing of 
the ear; but behold now mine eye seeth Thee: therefore I 
abhor myself and melt away, and account myself but dust and 
ashes"? Why was he displeased with himself in this so 
deep and profound a manner? God's work, in that he was 
man, could not rightly have given him displeasure, since it is 
even said to God Himself, “Despise not Thou the work of 


1 Rom. vii. 15. ? Quid quod. * Job-1 22 
4 Job xxxix. 34 (Sept.). § Job xlii. 5, 6. 


CIAP. XVIL] COMPARATIVE PERFECTION IN SAINTS. 89 





Thine own hands"! It was indeed in view of that righteous- 


ness, in which he had discovered his own unrighteousness,’ 
that he abhorred himself and melted away, and deemed him- 
self dust and ashes,—beholding, as he did in his mind, the 
righteousness of Christ, in whom there could not possibly be 
any sin, not only in respect of His divinity, but also of His 
soul and His flesh. It was also in view of this righteousness 
which is of God that the Apostle Paul, although as “ touching 
the righteousness which is of the law he was blameless,” yet 
* counted all things” not only as loss, hut even as dung. ® 
Cuap. 17. [x11.]—WVo one righteous in all things ; Job not afflicted because of 
his sins. 4 
That illustrious testimony, therefore, in which Job is com- 
mended, is not contrary to the passage in which it is said, 
“In Thy sight shall no man living be justified ;' ? for it does 
not lead us to suppose that in him there was nothing at all 
which might either by himself really or by God rightly be 
blamed, iens at the same time he might with no untruth 
be said to be a holy man, and a sincere b eee of God, 
and one who kept himself from every evil work. For these 
are God's words concerning him: * Hast thou diligently con- 
sidered my servant Job? For there is none like him on the 
earth, a man blameless, holy, a true worshipper of God, who 
abstains from everything evil" First, he is here praised 
for his excellence in comparison with all men on earth. He 
therefore excelled all who were at that time able to be 
righteous upon earth; and yet, because of this superiority 
over others in righteousness, he was not therefore altogether 
without sin. He is next said to be “blameless”—no one 
could fairly bring an accusation against him in respect of his 
conduct; “ holy” — he had advanced so greatly in moral 
probity, that no man could be mentioned on a par with him; 
“a true worshipper of God "—-because he sincerely and humbly 
confessed his own sins; a man “ who abstained from every evil 
thing”—it would have been wonderful and strange, however, 


LPS exe xvills 8. 

? Qua se noverat injustum. Several mss. have justum [g. d. ‘‘ had discovered 
what his own righteousness was, "—4i.e. nothing]. 

? Phil. iii. 6-8. * See below, chap. 23. 5 Ps. cxliii. 2. 6 Job i. 8. 


90 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





if this abstinence had extended to every evil word and thought. 
How great a man indeed Job was, we are not told; but we 
know that he was a just man; we know, too, that in the 
endurance of terrible afflictions and trials he was great; and 
we know that it was not on account of his sins, but for the 
purpose of demonstrating his righteousness, that he had to 
bear so much suffering. But the language in which the Lord 
commends Job might also be applied to him who “ delights © 
in the law of God after the inner man, whilst he sees another 
law in his members warring against the law of his mind ;"! 
especially as he says, “The good that I would I do not: but 
the evil which I would not, that Ido. Now, if I do that I 
would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in 
me.” 2 Observe how he too after the inward man abstains 
from every evil work, because such work he does not himself 
effect, but the evil which dwells in his flesh ; and yet, although . 
he derives that very ability to delight in the law of God only 
from the grace of God, he still exclaims in conscious yearning 
after deliverance, * O wretched man that I am! who shall 
deliver me from the body of this death? God's grace, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord.” ° 
Cur. 18. [xirr. ]JS2-Man's perfect righteousness is imperfect. 

There are then on earth righteous men, great men, wise, 
chaste, patient, pious, merciful, who endure all kinds of tem- 
poral evil with an even mind for righteousness’ sake. If, how- 
ever, there is truth—nay, because there is truth—ain these 
words, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,” * and 
in these, “ In Thy sight shall no man living be justified,’ even 
these worthies are not without sin; nor is there one among 
them so proud and foolish as not to feel how needful to him 
is the Lord’s Prayer, by reason of his manifold sins, of what- 
ever kind. 

Cuap. 19. Zacharias and Elisabeth. 

Now what must we say of Zacharias and Elisabeth, who 
are often alleged against us in discussions on this question ? 
All we can say is, that there is clear evidence in the Scripture? 
that Zacharias was a man of eminent holiness among the 


1 Rom. vii. 22, 23. ? Rom. vii. 19, 20. 3 Rom. vii. 24, 25. 
#1 John i. 8. 5 Luke i. 6-9. 


CHAP. XX.] ALL PRIESTS SINFUL BUT ONE. - 91 





chief priests, whose duty it was to offer up the sacrifices of 
the Old Testament. We also read, however, in the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, in a passage which I have already quoted in 
. my previous book,’ that Christ was the only High Priest who 
had no need, as those high priests are said to have had, to 
offer daily—first for Himself, and then for the people—sacri- 
fices for sin. “For such a High Priest,’ says [the apostle], 
“became us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from 
. sinners, and made higher than the heavens; who needeth not 
daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own 
sins"? Amongst the high priests here referred to was Zacha- 
rias, amongst them was Phinehas, yea, Aaron himself, in whom 
this priesthood had its beginning, and whatever others there 
were whose lives were worthy of commendation for their 
righteous discharge of their priestly functions; and yet all 
these were under the necessity, first of all, of offering sacrifice 
for their own sins,— Christ, of whose future coming they were 
an earnest and a type, being the one only High Priest who had 
no such necessity, by reason of His freedom from all sinful 
taint. 

Cuap. 20. Paul worthy to be the prince of the apostles ; the perfect wayfarer on 

the journey of eternal life. 

What commendation, however, is bestowed on Zacharias 
and Elisabeth which is not comprehended in what the apostle - 
has said about himself before he believed in Christ? He said 
that, “as touching the righteousness which is in the law, he 
had been blameless.” ° The same is said also of them: “ They 
were both righteous before God, walking in all the command- 
ments and ordinances of the Lord blameless"* Whatever 
righteousness they had in them was not a pretence of virtue 
exhibited before men. Accordingly it is said, “They walked 
before the Lord.” But that which is written of Zacharias and 
his wife in the phrase, in all the commandments and ordinances 
of the Lord, the apostle briefly expressed by the words, in the 
law. For there was not one law for him and another for them 
previous to the gospel. It was one and the same law which, 
as we read, was given by Moses to their fathers, and according 


1 See above, Book 1. c. 50. ? Heb. vii. 26, 27. 3 Phil. iii. 6. 
* Lukei 6. [See also his work, De Gratia Christi, 53.] 





92 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





to the prescription of which Zacharias held his priestly office, 
and offered sacrifices in his course. And yet the apostle, who 
was then endued with the like righteousness, goes on to say: 
* But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for 
Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the 
excellency-of the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ ; for 
whose sake I have not only thought all things to be only 
detriments, but I have even counted them as dung, that I may 
win Christ, and be found in Him, not having my own right- 
eousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the 
faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: 
that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection, and 
the fellowship of His suffering, being made conformable unto 
His death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrec- 
tion of the dead.” So far, then, is it from being true that we 
should, from the words in which Scripture describes them, 
suppose that Zacharias and Elisabeth had a perfect righteous- 
ness without any sin, that we must not, in fact, even regard 
the apostle himself as perfect in excellence according to the 
self-same rulej,—[that he lacked perfection] not only in that 
righteousness of the law which he possessed in common with 
them, and which he counts as loss and dung in comparison 
with that most excellent righteousness which is by the faith 
of Christ, but also in the very gospel itself, wherein he de- 
served the pre-eminence of his great apostleship Now I 
would not venture to say this if I did not deem it very wrong 
to refuse credence to himself. He extends the passage which 
we have quoted, and says: * Not as though I had already 
attained, or were already perfect; but I follow after, if I may 
apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ 
Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: 
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 
I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of 
God in Christ Jesus? Here he acknowledges that he has 
not yet attained, and is not yet perfect in that plenitude of 
righteousness which he longed to obtain in Christ, but that he 
was pursuing his aim, and, forgetting all that was behind and * 
1 Phil. iii. 7-11. ? Phil. iii. 12-14. 


CHAP. XXII.] SAINTLY MEN ARE YET SINNERS. 93 





past, was reaching out to the things which lay before him. 
We are sure, then, that what he says elsewhere is true even 
of himself: * Although our outward man is perishing, yet the 
inward man is renewed day by day." Although he was a 
complete and excellent traveller, he had not yet attained the 
very end of his journey. All such as deserved this character 
he would fain take with him as companions of his course. 
This he expresses in the words which follow our former 
quotation: “Let as many, then, of us as are perfect, be thus 
minded: and if ye be yet of another mind, God will reveal 
even this also to you. Nevertheless, whereunto we have 
already attained, let us walk by that rule"? This * walk" is 
not that of the legs, but is accomplished by the affections of 
the soul and the character of the life, so that they who possess 
righteousness may arrive at perfection; advancing in newness 
of life day by day along the straight path of faith, they have 
by this time become wayfarers, perfect in the self-same right- 
eousness. 
Cuap. 21. [xiv.] 

In like manner, all who are described in the Scriptures as 
exhibiting in their present life the good-will and the actions of 
righteousness, and all who have lived like them since, although 
lacking the same testimony of Scripture; or all who are even 
now living, or shall hereafter live, although they are all good 
and righteous, and are really worthy of all praise,——yet they are 
by no means without sin: inasmuch as, on the authority of 
the same Scriptures which supply us with the grounds of our 
belief in their virtues, we learn that in * God's sight no man 
living is justified ;"? whence arises our request to Him, that 
He would * not enter into judgment with His servants ;"* so 
that not only to all faithful people in general, but to each of 
them in partieular, is the Lord's Prayer necessary, which He 
delivered to His disciples. 

Cur. 22. [xv.]—An objection of the Pelagians ; perfection is relative; he is 
rightly said to be perfect in righteousness who has made much progress therein. 

Well, but the Lord says, * Be ye perfect even as your Father 
which is in heaven is perfect,”’°—an injunction which He would 


12 Cor. iv. 16. Pid. aie, q6. 5 pasexim 2. 
pose. Cx, 2. 5 Matt. vi. 12; Luke xi. 4. $ Matt. v. 48. 


94. ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





not have given, they say, if He had known that what He 
enjoined was impracticable. Now the present question is not 
whether it be possible for any men, during this present life, 
to be without sin if they receive adequate grace for the pur- 
pose, for his question we have already solved ; but what we 
have now to consider is, whether any man in fact achieves 
perfection. We have, however, already recognised the fact 
that no man’s will keeps even pace with the just necessity of 
every circumstance [of duty], as also the testimony of the 
Scriptures, which we have quoted so largely above, declares. 
When, indeed, the perfection of any particular person is men- 
tioned, we must look carefully at the sense in which it is 
mentioned. For I have just above quoted a passage of the 
apostle, wherein he confesses that he had not yet made that 
advance in the attainment of righteousness which he desires ; 
but still he immediately adds, “Let as many of us as are 
perfect be thus minded.” Now he would certainly not have 
uttered these two, sentences if there were not a sense in. 
which he was perfect, and another in which he was not per- 
fect. For instance, a man may be perfect as a scholar in the 
pursuit of wisdom, which could not yet be said of those to 
whom [the apostle] said, *I have fed you with milk, and not 
with meat: for hitherto ye have not been able to bear it, neither 
are ye yet able;"? whereas to the former class he says, “ How- 
beit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect;"—meaning, 
of course, to understand such as were perfect in the capacity 
of scholars. It may happen, therefore, as I have said, that 
a man may be already perfect as a scholar, though not as 
yet perfect as a teacher of wisdom; may be perfect as a 
learner, though not as yet perfect as a doer of righteousness ; 
may be perfect as a lover of his enemies, though not as yet 
perfect in bearing their wrong?  [Now, taking the case of 
him] who is so far perfect as to love all men, inasmuch as he 
has attained even to the love of his enemies, it still remains 
a question whether he be perfect in that love,——in other words, 
whether he feel towards the objects of his love so great a 
charity as is prescribed to be exercised towards them by the 


! See above, chap. 7. CIBC PII 2 
8 Ut sufferat is his antithesis here to ut diligat. 








CHAP. XXHL] ^ HUMAN PERFECTION RELATIVE.  — 95 





unchangeable love of truth. Whenever, then, we read in the 
Scriptures of any man's perfection, it must be carefully con- 
sidered in what sense the statement is made, since a man is 
not therefore to be understood as being entirely without sin 
because he is described as perfect in some particular thing; | 
although the term may be, in a general sense, employed to 
show, not, indeed, that there is no longer any point left for a 
man to reach in his way to perfection, but that he has in fact 
advanced a very great way, and on that account may be deemed 
worthy of the designation. Thus, in the teaching of the law, 
a man may be said to be perfect, even if there be still con- 
siderable omission in his observance of it; and in the same 
manner the apostle called men perfect, to whom he said at the 
same time, * Yet if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God 
shall reveal even this to you. Nevertheless, whereto we have 
already attained, let us walk by the same rule." ! 


Cuap. 23. [xvr.]— Wy God prescribes what He knows cannot be observed. 


We must not deny that God lays upon us such an injunc- 
tion as this,—that we ought to be so perfect in accomplishing 
righteousness, as to have no sin at all. Now that cannot be 
sin, whatever it may be, unless God has enjoined that it shall 
not be. Why then, they ask, does He command what He 
knows very well no man living can perform? On this ground 
also an objection might be raised by asking, Why He laid 
an injunction on the first human beings, who were only two, 
which He knew they would not be able to obey ? For it must 
not be pretended that He issued His command, that some of 
us might obey it, if they did not. The prohibition, indeed, 
that they should not partake of the fruit of the particular 
tree, God laid entirely on them, and on none besides ; for as 
He knew what amount of righteousness they would fail to 
perform, so did He also know what righteous measures He 
meant Himself to adopt concerning them. In the same way 
He orders all men to commit no sin, although He knows be- 
forehand that no man will fulfil the command, in order that 
He may, in the case of all who impiously despise His precepts 
so as to incur condemnation, Himself execute righteousness in 

4 Phil. iii, 15. 


96 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





their condemnation ; and that He may at the same time, in 
the case of those who obediently and piously keep the way 
of His commandments, and who, while failing to observe to the 
utmost all things which He has enjoined, do yet forgive others 
as they wish to be forgiven themselves, Himself do what is just 
and good in their sanctification and acquittal. For how can 
forgiveness be bestowed by God’s mercy on the forgiving, when 
there is no sin? or how prohibition fail to be given by the 
justice of God, when there is sin ? 

Cuap. 24.—An objection of the Pelagians. The Apostle Paul was not free from 

the thorn of the flesh so long as he lived. 

But see, say they, how the apostle says, “ I have fought a 
good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the etre 
eon there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness ; ds 
which it were impossible for him to say if he had any sin. It 
is for them, then, to explain how he could have said this, when 
there still remained for him to encounter the great conflict, 
the grievous and excessive weight of suffering which he had 
just Eu awaited him? In subs to finish his course, was there 
yet wanting only a small thing, when that in fact was still left 
to suffer wherein would exist a fiercer and more cruel foe? I, 
however, he uttered such words of joy from feeling sure and 
certain, on the ground that the assurance and certainty had 
been inspired in him by One who had revealed to him the 
imminence of his suffering, then it was not from absolute reali- 
zation, but from a very firm hope, that he spoke his famous 
words; he assumed beforehand that such an issue was going 
to happen, just as if he were demonstrating that it had actually 
come to pass. If, therefore, he had added to those words the 
further statement, “I have no longer any sin,’ we must have 
understood him as even then expressing the idea of a perfection 
arising from a future prospect, not from an accomplished fact. 
For his having no sin pertained to the finishing of his course, 
because (as they suppose) that course was completed when he 
spoke these words; just in the same way that his triumphing 
over his adversary in the decisive conflict of his passion had 
also reference to the finishing of his course. And our opponents 
must needs themselves allow that this completion remained 


12 Lu 1v. 4 3 2 Tim. iv. 6. 


CHAP. XXV.] ST. PAUL'S PERFECTION PROSPECTIVE. 97 





yet to be effected, when he uttered the exclamation which they 
quote. The whole of this consummation we in fact declare to 
have been even then awaiting its accomplishment, at the very 
moment when the apostle, with his perfect trust in the promise 
of God, spoke of it all as having been already realized. For 
it was in reference to the finishing of his course that he actually 
forgave the sins of those who sinned against him, and prayed 
that his own sins might in like manner be forgiven him ; and 
it was in his most certain confidence in this promise of the 
Lord, [in His Prayer, that he believed he should commit no 
sin in his encounter with that last end, which was still future, 
even when in his trustfulness he spoke of it as already accom- 
plished. Now, omitting all other considerations, I wonder 
whether, when he uttered the words in which he seemed to 
imply that he had passed beyond the commission of sin, that 
“ thorn of the flesh" had been yet removed out of him, for 
the withdrawal of which he had three times entreated the 
Lord, and had received this answer: * My grace is sufficient 
for thee; for my strength is made perfect in weakness"! For 
bringing so great a man to perfection, it was needful that there 
should not be withdrawn from him that “messenger of Satan" . 
by whom he was therefore to be buffeted, “lest he should be 
unduly exalted by the abundance of his revelations.”? Is 
there then any man so bold as either to think or to say, that 
any one who has to bend beneath the burden of this life is 
altogether clean from all sin whatever ? 
Cnr. 25.—God punishes both in wrath and in mercy ; there is no punishment 
but what is deserved by sin; Pelagius’ character commendable. 
Although there are some men who are so eminent in holi- 

ness that God speaks to them out of His cloudy pillar, such 
as “ Moses and Aaron among His priests, and Samuel among 
them that call upon His name,”* the latter of whom is much 
praised for his piety and purity in the Scriptures of truth, 
from his earliest childhood, when his mother, to accomplish 
her vow, placed him in God’s temple, and devoted him to the 
Lord as His servant, yet even of such men it is said, 
“Thou, O God, wast propitious unto them, though Thou didst 

192 Cor. xii. 8, 9. 3 2 Cor. xii. 7. 

3 See above, ch. 17. 4 Ps. xcix. 6. 

4 G 


98 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK IL 





punish all their devices.” ' Now the children of wrath God 
punishes in anger; whereas it is in mercy that He chastises 
the children of grace; since “whom He loveth He correcteth, 
and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth."? However, 
there are no punishments, no correction, no scourge of God, 
but what are owing to sin, except in the case of Him who 
prepared His back for the smiter, in order that He might 
undergo all our experience in our likeness without sin, in order 
that He might be the saintly Priest of saints, making inter- 
cession even for saints, who with no sacrifice of truth even 
say each one for himself, * Forgive us our trespasses, even as 
we also forgive them that trespass against us."? Wherefore 
even our opponents in this controversy, whilst they are chaste 
in their life, and commendable in character, and although they 
do not hesitate to do that which the Lord enjoined on the rich 
man, who inquired of Him about the attainment of eternal 
life, and who had told Him, in answer to His first question, 
that he had already fully kept every commandment in the law, 
that “if he wished to be perfect, he must sell all that he had . 
and give to the poor, and transfer his treasure to heaven,’* yet 
they do not in any one instance venture to say that they are 
without sin. But this, as we believe, they refrain from saying, 
with a mind to deceive; at any rate, when they propound 
their lies, this is the very point on which they begin either 
to augment or commit their sin. 

Cuap, 26. [xvir.]— The third question: Why no one in this life is without sin. 


Two causes of sin, ignorance and infirmity; in men lies the reason why 
they are not assisted by God. 


Let us now consider the point which I mentioned as our 
third inquiry. Since man may possibly exist in this life 
without sin, when God's grace assists the human will, how 
; happens it that there is in fact no such man? To this ques- 
tion I might return à very easy and truthful answer: Because 
men are unwilling; but if I am asked why they are unwilling, 
we are drawn into a lengthy statement. And yet, without 
prejudice to a longer disquisition, I may briefly say this much: 
Men are unwilling to do what is just and right, either because 


! Ps. xcix. 8 (Sept.). ? Prov. iii. 12 (Sept.). 
3 Matt. vi. 12, 14 ; Luke xi. 4, * Matt. xix. 12. 


CHAP. XXVII.] HINDRANCES OF MAN'S WILL. 99 





it is unknown to them, or because it is unpleasant to them. 
For we have the stronger desire for a thing, in proportion to 
the certainty of our knowledge how good it is, and in pro- 
portion to the warmth of satisfaction which that knowledge 
occasions. Ignorance, therefore, and infirmity are faults which 
hinder our will from moving either to the performance of a 
good work, or to the refraining from an evil one. But in 
order that what was hidden may come to light, and what was 
unpleasant may become agreeable, the grace of God operates 
and assists the wills of men. If in any case men are not 
assisted by it, the reason is equally due to themselves, not to 
God, whether they be predestinated to condemnation, owing 
to the iniquity of their pride, or whether they are to be 
judged contrary to their very pride, and to be disciplined out 
of the rudeness thereof, if they are children of mercy and 
grace. Accordingly Jeremiah, after saying, “I know, O Lord, 
that the way of man is not in himself, and that it belongeth 
not to any man to walk and direct his steps,'! immediately 
adds, “Correct me, O Lord, but with judgment, and not in 
Thine anger;"? as much as to say, I know that it is owing 
to my own fault, and that it is a part of Thy chastisement, 
that I am not assisted by Thee, that my footsteps should be 
perfectly directed: but yet do not in this so deal with me as 
Thou dost in Thine anger, when Thou dost determine to con- 
demn the wicked; but as Thou dost in Thy judgment where- 
by Thou dost teach Thy children not to be proud and arrogant. 
Whence in another passage it is said, “And Thy judgments 
shall help me.” ? 


Cuar. 27.—The divine remedies against pride; grace pre-eminent in Christ ; 
how it happens that righteousness sometimes affords pleasure more or 
less, sometimes not.* 


You cannot therefore attribute to God the cause of any sin. 
or shorteoming in man. For of all human faults the cause 
is pride, for the conviction and removal of which a great 
remedy-comes from heaven. God in His mercy humbles 
Himself, descends from above, and displays to man, lifted up 


1 Jer, x. 23. 2 Jer. x. 94... 3 Ps, cxix. 175. 
* See below, in ch. 33; also De Naturá et Gratid, 29-32; and De Corrept. 
et Gratia, 10; 


100 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





in pride, a pure and manifest grace in our own very manhood, 
which He undertook out of the vast love He bore to those 
who partake [of this nature] along with Himself For [Christ] 
did not undertake this dispensation of grace! (uniting Him- 
self so intimately with the Word of God as by the very union 
to become in one and the same person both Son of God and 
also Son of man) owing to any merits or claims antecedent to 
His own will. It behoved Him to be one; if it were possible 
that there should be two, or three, or more, such a dispen- 
sation would not have come from the pure and simple gift 
of God, but from man's free will and choice. This, then, is 
what is especially commended to us [in the gospel of God]; 
this, so far as I dare to think, is the divine lesson taught and 
learned in those treasures of wisdom and knowledge which are 
hidden in Christ. Every one of us, therefore, either knows 
or knows not—either rejoices or rejoices not—to begin, con- 
tinue, and complete a good work, discovering that it is due 
not to his own will, but to the gift of God that he either 
knows or rejoices [to accomplish such a work]. This results 
in his being cured of the pride and vanity which elated him, 
and in his knowing how truly it is said not simply of this 
earth of ours, but in the spiritual sense, * The Lord will give 
kindness and sweet grace, and our land shall yield her fruit"? 
A good work, moreover, affords greater delight, in proportion 
as God is more and more loved as the highest unchangeable 
Good, and as the Author of all good things of every kind 
whatever. And that God may be loved, “ His love is shed 
abroad in our hearts,” not by ourselves, but “by the Holy 
Ghost that is given unto us."? 


Cua». 28. [xvi11.]—A good will comes from God. 


Men, however, are toiling to discover in our own will some 
good thing of our own,—not given to us by God; but how it 
is to be found I cannot imagine. The apostle says, when 
speaking of men’s good works, “What hast thou that thou 
didst not receive? now, if thou didst receive it, why dost 
thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?”* But, besides 
this, even nature itself, which may be taken into the account 

! Fecit. 3 Ps. Ixxxv. 12 (Sept... — ?Rom.v. 5. 1 Cor. iv. 7. 





CHAP. XXX.] HOW A GOOD WILL COMES FROM GOD. 101 





by such as we, on such subjects as these, firmly keeps every 
one of us in our investigations within narrow bounds; for- 
bidding us so to maintain God's grace as to seem to take away 
free will, or, on the other hand, so to assert its liberty as to 
lay ourselves open to the censure of being ungrateful to the 
grace of God, in the arrogance of our impiety.’ 


Cuap. 29.— 4. subterfuge of the Pelagians. 


Now, with reference to the passage of the apostle which I 
have quoted, some of them would maintain it to mean that 
“whatever amount of good inclination a man has, must on 
this account be attributed to God, because even this amount 
could not be in him if he were not a human being. Now, in- 
asmuch as he only has from God the capacity of being any- 
thing at all, and of being human, why should there not be also 
attributed to God whatever there is in him of a good will, 
which could not exist unless he existed in whom it is found ?” 
But on these terms it may also be maintained that a bad and 
depraved will also comes from God as its author; because even 
it could not exist in man unless he were a man in whom it 
existed. Now God is the author of his human existence; He 
must therefore be the author also of this depraved will, which 
could have no existence if it had not a man to give it being. 
But to argue thus is blasphemy. 

Cuap. 80.—A free will is that which is freely bent hither and thither ; there are 
certain good things the use of which cannot be evil; all will is either good, 
and then it loves righteousness, or evil, when it does not love righteousness. 

Unless, therefore, we obtain not simply a choice of will, 
which is freely turned in this direction and that, and has its 
place amongst those natural goods which a man by using 
wrongly may become evil, but also a good will and desire, 
which has its place among those good gifts of which it is im- 
possible for us to make a wrong use (unless our having it 
from God negative the point of possibility to us), I know not 
how we are to defend the principle expressed [in the apostle’s 
question], “What hast thou that thou didst. not receive ?” 
For if we have from God a certain freedom of will, which may 
still be either a good will or an evil one; and if the good will 

1 See De Gratid Christi, 52; and De Gratid et Libero Arbitrio, 1. 


102 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK IL. 





comes from ourselves; then that which emanates from our- 
selves is a better thing than that which proceeds from Him. 
But inasmuch as it is the height of absurdity to say this, 
they ought to acknowledge that we learn from God how to 
acquire even a good will. It would indeed be a strange thing 
if our will could remain in a certain condition of neutrality,— 
so as to be neither good nor bad; for we either love righteous- 
ness, and then our will is à good one (and if our love for it 
be greater or less, then our will is more or less good) ; or else 
we do not love it at all, and in that case our will is not a good 
one. For who can hesitate to affirm that, when the will loves 
not righteousness in any way at all, it is not only a bad, but 
even a wholly depraved will? Since therefore the will is 
either good or bad, and since of course we have not the bad 
will from God, it remains that we have of God a good will; 
and besides, I know no other gift of His, since our justification 
is from Him, in which we ought to rejoice. Hence I suppose 
it is written, * The will is prepared of the Lord ;"! and in the 
Psalms, “The steps of a man will be rightly ordered by the 
Lord, and His way will be the choice of his will;"? and that 
which the apostle says, “For it is God who worketh in you 
both to will and to do of His own good pleasure.” ? 
CHAr. 31.— Grace is given to some men in mercy ; is withheld from others in 
justice and truth. 

Forasmuch then as our turning away from God is our own. 
act and deed, and this is our depraved will; since also our 
turning to God is not in our power, except He rouses and 
helps us, and this is our good will,—what have we that we 
have not received? And since we are recipients, why do we 
glory as if we had received nothing? Therefore, as “he that 
glorieth must glory in the Lord,"* it comes from His grace 
and mercy that God wills to impart such gifts to some, and 
from His truth and equity that He wills not to impart them 
to others. For to sinners punishment is justly due, because 
“the Lord God loveth mercy and truth,"? and “mercy and 
truth are met together ;”° and “all the paths of the Lord are 


1 [ééanoss, Sept.], Prov. viii. 35. 2 [deanoes, Sept.], Ps. xxxvii. 23. 
* Phil. ii. 18. “say xlv. 254 Jer. ix. 23, 94; Gor i Sh 
> Ps. Ixxxiv. 11 (Septuagint). OTs, Dre 210. 1 


CHAP. XXXIIL] | GOD'S GIFT OF GRACE INSCRUTABLE. | 108 





mercy and truth"! And who can tell the numberless in- 
stances in which Holy Scripture combines these two attributes ? 
Sometimes, by a change in the terms, grace is put for mercy, 
as in the passage, ^We beheld His glory, the glory as of the 
Only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth"? 
Sometimes also judgment occurs instead of truth, as in the. 
passage, *I will sing of mercy and judgment unto Thee, O 
Lord"? 


Cnr. 32.— Why grace is not given to all men, and not always even to the saints. 


As to the reason why He wills to convert some, and to 
punish others for turning away from Him, although nobody 
can justly censure Him for being merciful in conferring His 
blessing, nor can any man justly find fault with His truthful- 
ness in awarding punishment (as no one could justly blame 
Him, in the parable of the labourers, for paying to some their 
stipulated hire, and asserting for others such as had not been 
agreed on*), yet, after all, the purpose of His more hidden 
judgment lies entirely in His own hand. [xix.] So far as it 
has been given us to have wisdom and understanding, the 
Lord our God—if we are able to form a judgment—is even 
good in withholding sometimes from His saints either the cer- 
tain knowledge or the triumphant joy of a good work, that 
they may discover how it is not from themselves but from 
Him that they receive the light which illuminates their dark- 
ness, and the sweet grace which causes their land’ to yield 
her fruit. | 
Cnr. 33,— Through grace we have both the knowledge of good, and the delight 


which it affords ; need of grace to assist us ; it is given in mercy, or with- 
held in judgment ; we must, above all things, watch against pride. 


But when we pray Him to give us His help to do and 
accomplish righteousness, what else do we pray for than that 
He would open and explain what used to be hidden, and im- 
part sweetness to that which once gave no pleasure? For 
.even this very duty of praying to Him we have learned by 
His grace, since before we knew no such duty; and by His 
grace have come to love it, whereas before it gave us no 


TPa xxv. 10. 2 John i. 14. ops Lt, 
4 Matt. xx. 1-16. 5 i.e, the soil of their hearts. See above, c. 27. 


104 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





pleasure,—so that “he who glorieth must glory in the Lord,” 
and not in himself. To be lifted up, indeed, to pride is the 
result of men’s own will, not of the operation of God; for to 
such an emotion God neither urges us nor helps us. There 
first occurs then in the will of man a certain appetite of its 
own power, to become disobedient through pride. If it were 
not for this appetite, indeed, there would be nothing to cause 
trouble; and whenever man willed it, he might refuse without 
difficulty. There ensued, however, out of the penalty which 
was justly due to sin such a flaw and damage [to our moral 
nature], that henceforth it became difficult to be obedient unto 
righteousness ; and unless this damage were overcome by the 
assistance of grace, no one would turn to holiness; nor would 
any one enjoy the peace of righteousness unless the flaw were 
mended by the operation of grace. But whose grace is it that 
overcomes and repairs the damage, but His to whom the prayer 
is directed: “Convert us, O God of our salvation, and turn 
Thine anger away from us?”* And even when He does this, 
He does it in mercy, so that it is said of Him, “ Not according 
to our sins hath He dealt with us, nor hath He recompensed 
us according to our iniquities ;"" and when He refrains from 
doing this to any, it is in judgment that He refrains. And 
who shall say to Him, “What hast Thou done?" when with 
pious mind the saints sing to His praise of His mercy and 
judgment? Wherefore even in the case of His saints and 
faithful servants He applies to them a tardier cure in cer- 
tain of their failings, in order that, while they are involved in - 
these, a less pleasure than is compatible with the fulfilling of 
righteousness in allits perfection may be experienced by them 
at any good they may achieve, whether latent or manifest; 
so that in respect of His most perfect rule of equity and truth 
“no man living can be justified in His sight"? In His own 
self, indeed, He wishes none of us to fall under condemnation, 
but that we should become humble; and He displays to us 
all the self-same grace of His own. Let us not, however, 
after we have made trial of its facility in all things, suppose 
that [virtue] to be our own which is really His; for that 
would be an error most antagonistic to religion and piety. 
1 Ps, Ixxxv. 4, = Pa. Qu 10; XPssczrh 2 





CHAP. XXXIV.] NO MAN BUT ONE SINLESS. 105 





Nor let us think that we should, beeause of His grace, con- 
tinue in the same sins as of old; but against that very pride, 
which causes us our humiliation so long as we continue in 
them, let us, above all things, both vigilantly strive and 
ardently seek His help, knowing at the same time that it is by 
His gift that we have the power thus to strive and thus to 
pray; so that in every case, while we look not at ourselves, 
but raise our hearts above, we may render thanks to the Lord 
our God, and whenever we glory, glory in Him alone. 
Cuap. 34. [xx.]—He answers the fourth question proposed: That no man, with 
the exception of Christ, has ever lived, or can live without sin.} 

There now remains our fourth point, after the explanation 
of which, as God shall help us, this lenethened treatise of ours 
may at last be brought to an end. It is this: Whether the 
man who has never sinned at all, or never can sin, is not only 
now living as one of the sons of men, but also could ever have 
existed at any time, or will yet in time to come exist? Now it is 
altogether most certain that such a man neither does now live, 
nor has lived, nor ever will live, except the one only Mediator 
between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. We have! y 
already said a good deal on this subject in our remarks on the, 
baptism of infants; for if these have no sin, not only are there! 
at present, but also there have been, and there will be, persons’ 
innumerable without sin. Now if the point which we treated | xL 
of under the second head be truly substantiated, that there | ~ 
is in fact no man without sin, then of course not even infants | 
are without sin. From which the conclusion arises, that even | 
supposing a man could possibly exist in the present life so far & 
advanced in virtue as to have reached the perfect fulness of | | 
holy living which is absolutely free from sin, he still must have | | 
been undoubtedly a sinner previously, and have been con-,| | 
verted from the sinful state to this subsequent newness of life.| - 
Now when we were discussing the second head, a different 
question was before us from that which is before us under this 
fourth head. For then the point we had to consider was, 
Whether any man in this life could ever attain to such per- 
fection as to be absolutely without sin by the grace of God, by 
the hearty desire of his own will? whereas the question now 


1 See above, c. 8. 


106 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK IL. 





proposed in this fourth place is, Whether there be among the 
sons of men, or could possibly ever have been, or yet ever could 
be, a man who has not indeed emerged out of sin and attained 
to perfect holiness, but has never, at any time whatever, been 
under the bondage of sin? If, therefore, the remarks are true 
which we have made at so great length concerning infants, 
there neither is, has been, nor will be, among the sons of men 
any man, except the one Mediator, in whom there accrues to 
us that propitiation and justification through which we have 
reconciliation with God, by putting an end to the enmity pro- 
duced by our sins. It will therefore be not unsuitable to retrace 
a few considerations, so far as the present subject seems to 
require, from the very commencement of the human race, in 
order that they may inform and strengthen the reader’s mind 
in answer to some objections which may possibly disturb him. 


Cuap. 35. [xx1.]|—Adam and Eve ; the tree of knowledge of good and evil, why 
so called ; Adam, previous to his fall, made use of the tree of life; the tree . 
of life a type of wisdom ; a paradise for the body and for the soul ; obedience 
most strongly enjoined by God on man. 

When the first human pair—the man Adam, and his wife 
Eve who came out of him—willed no longer to obey the 
commandment which they had received from God, a just and 
deserved punishment overtook them. The Lord had threatened 
that, on the day they dared to eat the forbidden fruit, they 
should surely die! ^ Now, inasmuch as they had received 
the permission of using for food every tree that grew in Para- 
dise, among which God had planted the tree of life; but since 
He had forbidden them to partake of one only tree, which He 
called the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to signify by 
this name the consequence of their discovering both what 
good they would experience if they kept the prohibition, and 
what evil if they transgressed it, they are no doubt rightly 
considered to have abstained from the forbidden food previous 
to the malignant advice of the devil, and to have used all the 
aliments which had been allowed them, and therefore, among 
all the others, and before all the others, the tree of life. For 
what could be more absurd than to suppose that they partook 
of the fruit of other trees, but not of that which had been 

! Gen. ii. 17. 


CHAP. XXXV.] THE TWO TREES, OF KNOWLEDGE AND OF LIFE. 107 





equally with others granted to them, and which, by its extreme | 
virtue, prevented even their animal bodies from undergoing 
change through the decay of age, and from dying at last 
through very decrepitude, applying this benefit from its own 
body to the man's body, and in a mystery demonstrating what, 
by virtue of the wisdom which it symbolized, it conferred on 
the rational soul, even that it should be quickened by its 
fruit, and not be changed into a worthless state of decay and 
death? For of her it is rightly said, “She is a tree of life 
to them that lay hold of her"! The one was a tree for the 
bodily Paradise, the other for the spiritual; the one afforded 
vigour to the senses of the outward man, the other strength 
to those of the inner man,—a vital strength and vigour, with- 
out any change for the worse through lapse of time. They 
therefore serve God, that dutiful obedience being all along 
commended to them, whereby alone God can be worshipped. 
Now, however great [this tree] was in itself, and however 
efficient by itself alone to guard and preserve the rational 
creature under the Creator, it was yet impossible for it to be 
put to any higher use than that these rational creatures should 
by it be prohibited from a tree which had no inherent evil. 
For God forbid that the Creator of all good, who made all 
things, “and behold they were very good," should plant any- 
thing evil amidst the fertility of even that material Paradise. 
Still, however, it was well to show man, whose submission to 
such a Master was so very useful to him, how much good 
belonged simply to the obedience, which was all that He 
had demanded of His servant. This obedience would find its 
account not so much in the lordship of the Master as in the 
advantage of the servant. They were in fact forbidden the 
use of a tree, which, if it had not been for the prohibition, they 
might have used without suffering any evil result whatever; 
and from this circumstance it may be clearly understood, that 
whatever evil they brought on themselves because they made 
use of it in spite of the prohibition, the tree did not produce 
it to their detriment from any noxious or pernicious quality 
in its fruit, but entirely from the fact of their violated 
obedience. | 
! Prov. iii. 18. ? Gen. i. 91. 


108 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





Cuap. 36, [xxir. ]—Maw's state before the fall ; why the members of human gene- 
ration are called ** pudenda ;” sin dwelling in our members ; the **open- 
ing of their eyes," what this meant in our first parents. 


Before they had thus violated their obedience they were 
pleasing to God, and God was pleasant to them ; and though 
they carried about an animal body, they yet perceived in it no 
incentive moving them to disobedience. This was the right- 
eous appointment [of the Creator,] that inasmuch as their soul 
had received from the Lord a body for its servant, so it should 
itself obey the same Lord as its Master, even as its own body 
was obedient to itself, and should exhibit a service suitable to 
the life given it without resistance. Hence *they were both 
naked, and were not ashamed."! It is with a natural instinct. 
of shame that the rational soul is now indeed affected, because 
in that flesh, whose service it had once received as the just 
due of its own superior power, it can no longer, owing to some 
indescribable infirmity, prevent the motion of the members 
thereof, notwithstanding its own unwillingness, nor excite them 
to motion even when it wishes Now these members are on 
this account, in every man of chastity, rightly called * pu- 
denda" [such as cause him shame], because they excite them- 
selves, just as they like, in opposition to the mind which is 
their master, as if they were in fact their own masters; and 
the sole authority which the bridle of virtue possesses over 
them is to check them from approaching impure and unlawful 
pollutions. Such disobedience of the flesh as this, which lies 
in the very excitement, even when it is not allowed to take. 
effect, did not exist in the first man and woman whilst they 
were naked and not ashamed. For as yet the rational soul, 
which rules the flesh, had not developed such a disobedience - 
to its Lord, as by a reciprocity of punishment to bring on 
itself the rebellion of its own servant the flesh, along with that 
feeling of confusion and trouble to itself which it certainly 
failed to inflict upon God by its own disobedience to Him ; for 
God is put to no shame or trouble when we do not obey Him, 
nor are we able in any wise to lessen His very great power 
over us; but on ourselves shame is caused, whenever the flesh 
is not submissive to our command,—a result which is brought 


! Gen. ii. 25. 


CHAP. XXXVIL] THE LAW OF SIN IN THE MEMBERS. 109 





about by the infirmity which we incur by sinning, and is 
called *the sin which dwelleth in our members"! But this 
sin is of such a character that it becomes the chastisement of 
sin. As soon, indeed, as the transgression has been effected, 
and the soul in its disobedience has turned away from the law 
of its Lord, then its servant, the body, begins to put in force 
the law of disobedience against it; and then the man and the 
woman grew ashamed of their nakedness, when they perceived 
the rebellious motion of the flesh, which they had not per- 
ceived before. This discovery is called “the opening of their 
eyes ;"? for no longer did they walk about among the trees 
with closed eyes. ‘The same thing is said of Hagar: “ Her 
eyes were opened, and she saw a well"? Then the man and 
the woman covered their loins. God had given them to them — 
as useful members ; they made them “ pudenda," parts which 
caused them shame. 

CuHap. 37. [xxin. ]—Sin is the corruption of nature, its renovation is by Christ ; 
man’s original righteousness in Paradise, his righteousness after the fall. 
From this law of sin comes that sinful flesh, which requires 

cleansing through the mystery of Him who came in the like- 

ness of sinful flesh, that the body of sin might be destroyed, 
which is also called “the body of this death,” from which only 

God’s grace delivers wretched man through Jesus Christ our 

Lord* For this law, which originated death, passed on from 

the first pair to their posterity, as [is attested by] the labour 

with which all men toil on earth, and the travail which affects 
mothers with the pains of childbirth. These sufferings they 
brought on themselves according to the sentence of God, when 
they were convicted of sin; and we see them accomplished, 
not only in them, but also in their descendants, in some more, 
in others less. Whereas, however, the primeval righteousness 
of the first human beings consisted in obeying God, and not 
having in their members the law of concupiscence operating 
against the law of their mind; now, since their fall, in our 
sinful flesh which is born of them, it is obtained by those who 
obey God as a great acquisition that they do not obey the 
desires of this evil concupiscence, but crucify in themselves 
the flesh with its affections and lusts, that they may be Jesus 

1 Rom. vii. 17, 23. ? Gen. iii. 7. 3 Gen. xxi. 19. * Rom. vii. 24, 25. 


- 
} 


|" 
| 
} 
| 
| 
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110 . ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





Christ’s, who on His cross figured this crucifixion, and who 
gave them power through His grace to become the sons of 
God. For it is not to all men, but to as many as have re- 
ceived Him, that He has given to be born again to God of the 
Spirit, after their natural birth in the flesh. Of these indeed 
it is written: “But as many as received Him, to them gave 


_ He power to become the sons of God; which were born, not 


of the flesh, nor of blood, nor of the will of man, nor of the 
will of the flesh, but of God.” 
Cuap. 88. [xxiv. ]— What benefit has been conferred on us by the incarnation of 


the Word ; Christ’s birth i in the flesh, wherein it is like and wherein unlike 
our own birth. 


He goes on to add, “ And the Word was made flesh, and 
dwelt among us;"? as much as to say, A great thing indeed 
has been dus among them, even that they are born again to 
God of God, who had before been born of the flesh to the 
world, although created by God Himself; but far more wonder- 
ful is the fact that, whereas it accrued to them by nature to be 
born of the flesh, but by the divine goodness to be born of 
God, in order that so great a benefit might be imparted to 
them, He who was in His own nature the Son of God, vouch- 
safed in mercy to be also born of the flesh,—no less being 


4 | meant by the puse “And the Word was made flesh, T 


dwelt among us.” Hereby, he says in effect, it has come to 


| pass that we who were born of the flesh as flesh, by being 


| afterwards born of the Spirit, became spirit and dwelt in Gage 

' because God, who was born of God, by being afterwards bom 
‘of the flesh, became flesh, and dwelt among us. For the Word, 
which became flesh, was in the beginning, and was God with 
God? But at the same time His cies I to our inferior 
condition, and sharing in it, in order to our participation in 
His higher state, has always occupied a kind of intermediate 
position* even in His birth of the flesh. Whilst we indeed 
were born in sinful flesh, He was born in the likeness of sin- 
ful flesh ; whilst we were born not only of flesh and blood, but 
also of the will of man, and of the will of the flesh, He was 
born only of flesh and blood, not of the will of man, nor of the 
will of the flesh, but of God. We, therefore, [were born] to 

1 John i. 12, 18. ? John i. 14. * John i. 1. ^ Medietatem. 


CHAP. XXXIX.] CHARACTER OF CHRIST'S INCARNATION. TH 





die on account of sin; He, on our account, [was born] to die 
without sin. Moreover, just as His inferior circumstances, to 
which He lowered Himself to reach us, were not in every par- 
ticular exactly on a par with our inferior condition, in which 
He found us here; so our superior state, in which we mount 
up to God, will not be quite equal to His superior state, in 
which we are there to find Him by and by. For we by His 
grace are to be made the sons of God, whereas He was evermore 
by nature the Son of God; we having been once converted shall 
cleave to God, though not as His equal; He who never turned 
from God, remains ever equal to God; we are partakers of 
eternal life, He is eternal life. He, therefore, alone having be- 
come man, but still continuing to be God, never had any sin, 
nor did He assume a flesh of sin, although born of His mothers! 
sinful flesh. For what He then took of flesh, He either 
cleansed in order to take it, or cleansed by taking it. His 
virgin mother, therefore, whose conception was not according 
to the law of sinful flesh (in other words, not by the excite- 
ment of carnal concupiscence), but who merited by her piety 
and faith the formation within her of the holy seed, He formed 
in order to select her [as His parent,] and selected her in order 
to be formed in her and of her. How much more needful, then, 
is it for sinful flesh to be baptized in order to escape the judg- 
ment, when the flesh which was untainted by sin was baptized 
to set an example for imitation ? 


Cuap. 39. [xxv.]—4n objection of the Pelagians. 

The answer, which we have already given, to those who 
say, “ If a sinner has begotten a sinner, a righteous man ought 
also to have begotten a righteous man," we now advance in 
reply to such as argue that one who is born of a baptized man 
ought himself to be regarded as already baptized. “ For why," 
they ask, * could he not have been baptized in the loins of his 
father, when, according to the Epistle to the Hebrews, Levi? 
was able to pay tithes in the loins of Abraham ?" They who 


1 De materná carne peccati. Another reading has, De naturá carnis peccati 
(** of the nature of sinful flesh”) ; and a third, De materié carnis peccati (‘ of 
the matter of sinful flesh "). 

? See above, c. 11. 3 The allusion is to Heb. vii. 9. 


112 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





propose this argument ought to observe that Levi did not sub- 
sequently pay tithes because he had paid tithes already in the 
loins of Abraham, but because he was ordained to the office of 
the priesthood in order to receive tithes, not to pay them; 
otherwise not even his brethren, who all used to contribute 
their tithes to him, would have to make such payments, be- 
cause they too, whilst in the loins of Abraham, had paid tithes 
to Melchisedec. 


Cuap. 40.—An argument anticipated. 


And let no one contend that the descendants of Abraham 
might fairly enough have paid tithes, although they had 
already paid tithes in the loins of their forefather, on the 
ground that paying tithes was an obligation of such a nature 
as to require constant repetition from pu several person, as 
was the case with the Israelites, who used to pay such con- 
tributions year by year all through life to their Levites, to 
whom were due various tithes D all kinds of produce ; 
whereas baptism is a sacrament of such a nature as admits of 
no repetition,—it is administered once for all. And if a man 
had already received it when in his father [according to the 
supposition], he must be considered as no other than baptized, 
since he was born of a man who had been himself baptized. 
Well, whoever thus argues (I will simply say, without discuss- 
ing the point at length), should look at circumcision. This 
used to be administered once for all, but yet it must be dis- 
pensed to each person separately and individually. [And the 
cases are strictly parallel.] For as it was necessary in the 
time of that ancient sacrament for the son of a circumcised 
man to be himself circumcised, so now the son of one who 
has been baptized must himself also receive baptism. 

Cuap. 41.—Children are called ** clean" [or holy] by the apostle when one 

or the other of their parents was a believer. 

The apostle indeed says, “Else were your children un- 
clean, but now are they holy ;"? and therefore they infer there 
was no necessity for the children of believers to be baptized. 
I am surprised at the use of such language by persons who 


! [See Gelasius, in his T'reatise against the Pelagians. ] 
? ] Cor. vii. 14. 


CHAP. XLL] “NOW ARE YOUR CHILDREN HOLY.” 113 





deny that original sin has been transmitted from Adam. If 
they take this passage of the apostle to mean that the children 
of believers are born in a state of holiness, how is it that they 
actually have no doubt about the necessity of even these 
children being baptized? Why, in short, do they refuse to 
admit that any original sin is derived from a sinful parent, if 
any holiness is received from a holy parent? Now it does 
not contravene any assertion on our side, indeed, even if 
* holy" children are [said to be] born of believing parents, 
because we also hold that unless children are baptized they 
are in danger of! damnation; and even our opponents ex- 
clude them from the kingdom of heaven, although they insist 
that they are without sin, whether actual or original? Now, 
if they think it an unbecoming thing for beings who are “ holy” 
to incur damnation, how can it be a proper thing to exclude 
them, “ holy” as they are, from the kingdom of God? They, 
should pay especial attention to this point, How can a sinful 
state help being derived from sinful parents, if a holy state is 
derived from holy parents, and an unclean state from unclean 
parents? For the twofold principle was affirmed [by the, © 
apostle] when he said, “ Else were your children unclean, 
but now are they holy.” They should also explain to us how 
it is right that the holy children of believers and the unclean 
children of unbelievers are, notwithstanding their different 
circumstances, equally prohibited from entering the kingdom 
of God, if they have not been baptized. What avails that 
sanctity of theirs in the former class? Now if they were to 
maintain that the unclean children of unbelievers are damned, 
but that the holy children of believers are not damned, be- 
cause they are “ holy,’—although they are unable to enter the 
kingdom of heaven unless they are baptized,—that would be a 
distinction so far as it went; but as it is, they declare with 
an equal amount of assurance respecting the holy children of 
holy parents and the unclean offspring of unclean parents, 
that they are not damned, since they have not any sin; and 
that they are excluded from the kingdom of God because they 
are unbaptized. What an absurdity! Who can suppose that 
such splendid geniuses do not perceive it ? 
! Pergere in. 2 See above, Book 1. ch. 21-23. 
4 H 


114 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





Cua». 42.—Sanctification manifold ; sacrament of catechumens. 


Our opinions on this point are strictly in unison with the 
apostle’s himself, who said, “From one all are exposed to 
condemnation,” and “from One all to justification of life.”? 
Now how consistent these statements are with what he else- 
where says, when treating of another point, “ Else were your 
children unclean, but now are they holy," consider awhile. 
[xxvr] Holiness or sanctification is not of merely one mode ; 
for even catechumens, I take it, are sanctified in a manner 
suitable to them by the sign of Christ, and His prayer and 
imposition of hand ; and what they receive is holy, although 
it is not the body of Christ,—holier, indeed, than any food 
which constitutes our ordinary nourishment, because it is a 
sacrament.” However, that very meat and drink, wherewithal 
the necessities of our present life are sustained, are, according 
to the same apostle, “sanctified by the word of God and 
prayer,’® even the prayer with which we beg that our bodies 
may be refreshed. [And here arises an argument from 
analogy ;] for as this sanctification of our ordinary food does 
not hinder what enters the mouth from descending into the 
belly, and being ejected into the draught and partaking of 
the corruption into which everything earthly is resolved, 
whence the Lord exhorts us to labour for the food which never 
perishes,’ so the sanctification of the catechumen, if he is 
not baptized, does not avail for his entrance into the kingdom 
of heaven, nor for the remission of his sins. And, by parity 
of reasoning, that sanctification likewise, of whatever kind it 
be, which, according to the apostle, is inherent in the children 
of believers, has nothing whatever to do with the question of 
baptism and of original sin, or the remission thereof? The 
apostle, in this very passage which has occupied our attention, 


1 See Rom. v. 18. 

* Catechumens received the sacramentum salis—salt placed in the mouth— 
with other rites, such as exorcism and the sign of the cross ; the Lord's Prayer and 
other invocations concluding the ceremony. See Canon 5 of the third Council 
of Carthage ; also Augustine's De Catechiz. Rud. 50 ; and his Confess. i. 11, 
where (speaking of his owri catechumenical course) he says: ‘‘I was now signed 
with the sign of His cross, and was seasoned with His salt." 

Pl Tim. iv. 5. * Mark vii. 19. 5 John vi. 27. 

$ See below, Book 111. chap. 21; and his Sermons, xxix. 4. 





i 

CHAP. XLIIL] CHILDREN OF THE BAPTIZED REQUIRE BAPTISM. 115 
says that the unbeliever of a married couple is sanctified by a 
believing partner His words are: “ For the unbelieving 
husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is 
' sanctified by the husband. Else were your children unclean, 
but now are they holy"! Now, I should say, there is not a 
man whose mind is so warped by unbelief, as to suppose that, 
whatever sense he gives to these words, they can possibly 
mean that a husband who is not a Christian should not be 
baptized because his wife is a Christian, and that he has 
already obtained remission of his sins, with the certain prospect 
of entering the kingdom of heaven, because he is described as 
being sanctified by his wife. 





Cuap. 43. [xxvit.] 


If any man, however, is still perplexed by the question 
why the children of baptized persons are baptized, let him 
briefly consider this: Inasmuch as through the one man, 
Adam, the generation of sinful flesh draws into condemnation 
all who are born of such generation, so the generation of the 
Spirit of grace through the one man Jesus Christ, draws to the 
justification of eternal life all who partake of this regenera- 
tion to which they are predestinated. But the sacrament / 
of baptism is undoubtedly the sacrament of regeneration. J 
Wherefore, as the man who has never lived cannot die, and 
he who has never died cannot rise again, so he who has never. 
been born cannot be born again. From which the conclusion | 
arises, that no man who has not been born could possibly have 
been born again in his father. Dorn again, however, a man 
must of necessity be, if he has ever been born; because, 
* Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of 
God.”? Even an infant, therefore, must be immersed in the 
sacrament of regeneration, or without it his would be an un- 
happy exit out of this life; and this baptism is administered 
solely for the remission of sins. And so much does Christ 
show us in this very passage; for when asked, How could such 
things be? He reminded His questioner of what Moses did 
when he lifted up the serpent. Inasmuch, then, as infants 
are by the sacrament of baptism conformed to the death of 

1 1 Cor. vii. 14. ? John iii. 3. 


116 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





Christ, is must be admitted that they are also freed from the 
serpent’s poisonous bite, unless we wilfully wander from the 
cule of the Christian faith. This bite, however, they did not 
‘receive in their own actual life, but in and through him on 
whom the wound was primarily inflicted. 


Cua». 44.—An objection of the Pelagians. 


Nor do they fail to see this point, that his own sins are no 
‘detriment to the parent after his conversion ; they therefore 
raise the occurrent question: “ How much more impossible is 
it that they should be a hindrance to his son?” But they 
who thus think do not attend to this consideration, that as his 
own sins are not injurious to the father for the very reason 
that he is born again of the Spirit, so in the case of his son, 
unless he be in the same manner born again, the sins which 
he derived from his father will prove injurious to him. Be- 
cause even regenerate parents beget children, not from the first- 
fruits of their renewed condition, but carnally from the re- 
mains of the old nature; and the children who are thus the 
offspring of their parents’ remaining old nature, and are born 
in sinful flesh, escape from the condemnation which is due to 
the old man by the sacrament of spiritual regeneration and 
renewal. Now this is a consideration which, on account of 
the controversies that have arisen, and may still arise, on this 
subject, we ought to keep in our view and memory,—that a 
plenary and perfect remission of sins takes place only in 
baptism, that the character of the actual man does not at once 
undergo a total change, but that the first-fruits of the Spirit 
in such as walk worthily change the old carnal nature into 
one of like character by a process of renewal, which increases 
day by day, until the entire old nature is so renovated that 
the very weakness of the natural body attains to the strength 
and incorruptibility of the spiritual body. 

Cuar. 45. [xxvirr.]— The law of sin is called sin; concupiscence still remains 
after its evil has been removed in the baptized ; how this happens ; the being 
in the flesh ; the guilt of concupiscence is done away by baptism, though the 
concupiscence remains. 

This law of sin, however, which the apostle also designates 
“sin,” when he says, “Let not sí» therefore reign in your 


CHAP. XLV.] CHRISTIANS “NOTIN THE FLESH ;" How? 117 





mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof,’? 
does not remain in the members of those who are born again 
of water and the Spirit, in such a way as if there were no 
remission thereof, because there is a full and perfect remis- 
sion of our sins, all the enmity being slain, which separated 
us from God; but it remains in our old carnal nature, as 
overcome and destroyed, so long as 1t does not, by consenting 
to unlawful objects, spring to life again, and call itself back to 
its proper reign and dominion. There is, however, so clear a 
distinction to be seen between this old carnal nature, in which 
the law of sin (or sin) is already repealed, and that life of 
the Spirit, in the newness of which they who are baptized are 
through God's grace born again, that the apostle deemed it 
inadequate to say of such that they were not in sin; but he 
went so far as to describe them as not being in the flesh itself, 
even before they departed out of this mortal life. * They that 
are in the flesh,” says he, “cannot please God; but ye are not 
in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God 
dwell in you"? And indeed, as they turn to good account 
the flesh itself, however corruptible it be, who apply its 
members to good works, and in that flesh no longer are, sincé 
they do not mould their understanding nor their life accord- 
ing to its principles; and as they in like manner make even 
a good use of death, which is the penalty of the first sin, who 
encounter it with fortitude and patience for their brethren's 
sake, and for the faith, and in defence of whatever is true and 
holy and just,—so also do all “true yokefellows " in the faith / 
turn to good account that very law of sin which still remains; 
though remitted, in their old carnal nature, who, from their 
having the new life of Christ, do not permit lust to have 
dominion over them. And yet these very persons, from the 
fact of their still carrying about Adam's old nature, continue 
after the manner of mortal man to beget children with a pro- 
geny of sin, who require regeneration to attain immortality ; 
[and this they may attain,] because such as are born again are | 
not tied and bound by the sin in which they are born, and 
from which they that are born in it are loosened by being 
born again. As long, then, as the law of sin by concupi- 


Rom. vi 12. 2 Rom. viii. 8, 9. 


118 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





scence’ dwells in the members, although the concupiscence re- 
mains, the guilt of it is dissoluble, but [only] to him who has 
received the sacrament of regeneration, and is entering upon 
newness of life. Whatsoever is born of the old nature, which 
still abides with its concupiscence, requires to be born again 
in order to be healed. Granting that believing parents, who 
have been both carnally born and spiritually regenerated, 
have themselves begotten children in a carnal manner, how 
could their children by any possibility, previous to their first 
birth, have been born again ? 


Cuar. 46.—[Compare Augustine's Book v1. against Julianus, c. 22.) 


You must not be surprised at what I have said, that al- 
though the law of sin remains with its concupiscence, the 
guilt thereof is done away through the grace of the sacrament. 
For as wicked deeds, and words, and thoughts have already 
passed away, and cease to exist, so far as regards the mere 
movements of the mind and the body, and yet their guilt re- 
mains after they have passed away and become non-existent, 
unless it be done away by the remission of sins; so, contrari- 
wise, in this not yet preterite but still abiding law of con- 
cupiscence, its guilt is done away, and continues no longer, 
since in baptism there takes place a full forgiveness of sins. 
_ Indeed, if a man were to quit this present life immediately 
after his baptism, there would be nothing at all left to keep 
him bound, inasmuch as all bonds which held him are loosened. 
As, on the one hand, therefore, there is nothing strange in the 
fact that the guilt of past sins of thought, and word, and deed 
remains before their remission ; So, on the other hand, there 
ought to be nothing to create surprise, that the guilt of re- 
maining concupiscence passes away after the remission of 
sins. 

Cuar. 47, [xxix. ]—All the predestinated are saved through the one Mediator 
Christ, and by one only faith. 

This being the case, ever since the time when by one 
man sin thus entered into the world and death by sin, and 
death in this way passed through to all men, up to the 
close of the generations of the flesh and this perishing 

! We follow the reading, lex [scil. peccati] concupiscentialiter, etc. 


CHAP. XLVIIL] THE “ONE FAITH" VARIOUSLY DEVELOPED. 119 





world, the children of which beget and are begotten, there 
never has existed, nor ever will exist, a human being of whom, 
while placed in this life of ours, it could be said that he had 
no sin at all with the exception of the one Mediator, who 
reconciles us to our Maker through the forgiveness of sins. 
Now this same Mediator, our Lord Himself, has never yet 
refused, at any period of the human race, nor to the last 
judgment will He ever refuse, this healing grace of His to 
those whom, in His most sure foreknowledge and promised? 
loving-kindness, He has predestinated to reign with Himself to . 
life eternal. For, previous to His birth in the flesh, and His 
suffering in infirmity, and rising again in power, He instructed 
all who then lived, in the faith of those then future blessings, 
that they might inherit everlasting life; whilst those who 
were alive when all these things were being accomplished in 
Christ, and who were witnessing the fulfilment of prophecy, 
He impressed with the belief of their present reality ; whilst 
again, those who have since lived, and ourselves who are now 
alive, and all those who are yet to live, He likewise informs 
without ceasing, and will inform, in the faith of these great 
past events. It is therefore “one faith” which saves all, who 
after their carnal birth are born again of the Spirit, having its 
end in Him, who came to be judged for us and to die,—the 
Judge of quick and dead. But this one faith undergoes 
change at various times, in sacraments fitted to express its 
signification by suitable methods. | 

Cuap. 48.—Christ the Saviour even of infants ; Christ, when an infant, was free 


from the ignorance and mental weakness of that stage of life; Christ's flesh 
would seem to have been liable to death even by growing old. ' 


He is therefore actually the Saviour at once of infants and 
of adults, of whom the angel said, “There is born unto you 
this day a Saviour ;”* and concerning whom it was declared 
to the Virgin Mary? “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for 
He shall save His people from their sins,” where it is plainly 
shown that He was called Jesus because of the salvation 
which He bestows upon us,—Jesus being tantamount to the 
Latin Salvator, “Saviour.” Who then can be so bold as to 


1 Futuram. ? Luke ii. 11. 
* Rather to Joseph, Mary's husband ; Matt. i. 21. 


120 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





maintain that the Lord Christ is Jesus only for adults and 
not for infants also? Coming in the likeness of sinful flesh, 
to destroy the body of sin, with infants’ limbs fitted and suit- 
able for no use in the extreme weakness of such body, and 
His rational soul oppressed with miserable ignorance! Now 
that such ignorance existed [in such a way as is here sug- 
gested, ] I cannot suppose in the infant in whom the Word was 
made flesh, that He might dwell among us; nor can I imagine 
that such weakness of TUS mental faculty ever existed in the 
infant Christ which we see in infants generally. It is owing 
to such infirmity and ignorance that infants are disturbed 
with unaccountable fits of restlessness, and are restrained by 
no rational command or rule, but by pains and penalties, or 
the terror of such. From this you can quite see what hap- 
pens in the case of the children of that disobedience, which 
excites itself in the members of our body in opposition to the 
law of the mind,—how it refuses to be still, even when the 
reason wishes; nay, how it is either repressed by some actual 
inflietion of HE pain, as for instance by flogging; or is 
checked by producing fear, or by some such mental emotion, but 
not by any precept of the will. Inasmuch, however, as in Him 
there was the likeness of sinful flesh, He willed to pass through 
the changes of the various stages of life, beginning even with 
infancy, so that it would seem as if that fen of His might 
have arrived at death by the gradual approach of old age, if 
He had not been killed when a young man. Since, however, 
the death which is inflicted on sinful flesh is owing to dis- 
obedience, in His case it was undergone in the Honc of sin- 
ful flesh, because of His voluntary obedience. For when He 
was on His way to it, and was soon to suffer it, He said, 
“Behold, the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing 
in me. But that all may know that I am doing my Father's 
will arise, let us go hence"! Having said these words, He 
went straightway, and encountered Ane undeserved death, 
having become obedient even unto death. 
Cup. 49. [xxx.]—An objection of the Pelagians. 

They therefore who say, “If through the sin of the first 

man it has come to pass that we must “die, by the coming of 
1 John xiv. 30, 31. 


CHAP. L.] ADAM AND CHRIST, IN CONTRAST. 121 





Christ it must needs happen that, being believers in Him, we 
shall not die;" and they add what they deem a reason, saying, 
* For the sin of the first transgressor could not possibly have 
injured us more than the incarnation or redemption of the 
Saviour has benefited us.” But why do they not rather give 
an attentive ear, and an unhesitating belief, to that which, the | 
apostle has stated so unambiguously: * Since by man came 
death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead ; for as 
in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ?"! ' 
It is of no other subject that he spoke than of the resurreo- - 
tion of the body: Having said that the bodily death of all — 
men has come about through one man, he adds the promise 
that the bodily resurrection of all men to eternal life shall 
happen through one, even Christ. How can it therefore be 
that *the one has injured us more by sinning than the other 
has benefited us by redeeming,” when by the sin of the former 
we die a temporal death, but by the redemption of the latter 
we rise again not to a temporal, but to an eternal life? Our 
body, therefore, is dead because of sin, but Christ’s body only 
died without sin, in order that, having poured out His blood 
without fault or sin, “the handwriting” which contains the 
register of all men's sins “might be blotted out"? While 
their debts were inscribed in this, they who now believe in 
Him were formerly held in bondage by the devil. And ac- 
cordingly He says, “ This is my blood, which is shed for 
many for the remission of sins.” ® 

CHAP. 50. [xxx1. ]— Why it is that death itself is not abolished, along with sin, 

by baptism. 

He might, however, have also conferred this upon nn 
that ES should escape even the experience of the death of 
their body. But if He had done this, there might no doubt 
have been added a certain felicity to the flesh, but the forti- 
tude of faith would have been diminished ; for men have such 
a fear of death, that they would insist on Christians being 
happy, because of their mere immunity from dying. No one 
in the case now supposed would, for the sake of that life 
. which is to be so happy after death, be forward in possessing 
the grace of Christ by virtue of despising even death itself; 

LT Cor, xv..21, 22; ? Col. ii. 14. 3 Matt. xxvi. 28. 


122 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





he would rather resort to a more delicate and easy mode of 
believing in Christ, with a view to remove the trouble and 
difficulty of death. More grace, therefore, than this has He 
conferred on those who believe on Him; and a greater gift, 
undoubtedly, has He vouchsafed to them! What great 
matter would it have been for a man, on seeing that people 
did not die when they became believers, himself also to 
believe that he was not to die? How much greater a thing 
is it, how much braver, how much more laudable, so to 
believe, that although one is sure to die, he can still hope 
to live hereafter for evermore! Indeed, upon some there 


will be bestowed this blessing at the last day, that they shall 


not perceive the actual suffering of death in the suddenness 
of the change which shall happen to them, but they shall be 
caught up along with the risen in the clouds to meet Christ 
in the air, and so shall they ever live with the Lord! And 
rightly shallit befall those whose belief is actuated by this 
nobler principle; they shall escape the degradation of those 
who shall deserve the lower place for not hoping for what 
they see not, while loving what they see. This weak and 
nerveless faith must not be called faith at all, inasmuch as 
faith indeed is thus defined: “Faith is the firmness of those 
who hope,” the clear proof of things which they do not 
see."? Accordingly, in the same Epistle to the Hebrews, 
where this passage occurs, after enumerating in. subsequent 
sentences certain worthies who pleased God by their faith, he 
says: “These all died in faith, not having received the 
promises, but seeing them afar off, and hailing them, and 
confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the 
earth.”* And then afterwards he concluded his eulogy on 


| faith in these words: “ And these all, having obtained a good 


_ report through faith, did not indeed receive God's promises ; 


| for they foresaw better things for us, and that without us 
| they could not themselves become perfect? Now this would 


1 1 Thess. iv. 17. : 

? Augustine constantly quotes this text with the active participle sperantium, 
instead of sperandorum. The Greek iawZouévwv is not always construed pas- 
sively in the passage ; some regard it as of the middle voice. 

* Heb. xi. 1. * Heb. xi. 13. > Heb. xi. 39, 40. 


CHAP. LIL] WHY THE REGENERATE ARE SUBJECT TO DEATH. 123. 





be no praise for faith, nor (as I said) would it be faith at all, 

were men in believing to follow after rewards which they 
| could see,—in other words, if on believers were bestowed the 
- reward of immortality in this present world. 


Cnar. 51.— Why the devil is said to hold the power and dominion of death. 


Hence the Lord Himself willed to die, “in order that," as 
it is written of Him, “through death He might destroy him 
that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver 
them who through fear of death were all their Ho. subject 
to bondage." E From this passage it is shown with sufficient 
p that even the death of the body came about at the 
instigation and authority of the devil .—in a word, from the 
sin which he persuaded man to commit; nor is there any 
other reason why he should be said in strictness of truth to 
hold the power of death. Accordingly, He who died without 
any sin, original or actual, said in the passage I have already 
quoted: “ Behold, the prince of this world,’ that is, the 
devil, who had the power of death, “and hath nothing in 
me,’—meaning, he shall find no sin in me, because of which 
he has caused men to die. As if the question were asked 
Him: Why then should you die? He says, “That all may 
know that I am doing my Father's will; arise, let us go 
hence."? That is, [let us go hence] that I may die, though 
I have no cause of death from sin under the author of sin, 
but only from obedience and righteousness having become 
obedient unto death. Proof is likewise afforded us by this! 
passage, that the fact of the faithful overcoming the fear of 
death is a part of the struggle of faith itself ; ud all struggle 
would indeed be at an end, if immortality. were at once to | 
become the reward of them that believe. 

Cuap. 52. [xxxar. ]— Why Christ, after His resurrection, withdrew His presence 
from the world. 

However many were the miracles which the Lord visibly 
wrought, in order that faith might sprout at first and be fed 
by infant nourishment, and grow to its full strength by and 
by after this tender treatment (for faith becomes stronger the 
more it foregoes the help of those [visible proofs]), He still 

1 Heb. ii. 14, 2 John xiv. 30, 31. 


124 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





wished us to wait quietly, without visible inducements, for the  . 
promised hope, that the just might live by faith ;! and so |\/ 


great was this wish of His, that though He rose from the : ' 


dead the third day, He did not desire even to remain among 
men, but, after leaving a proof of His resurrection by showing 
Himself in the flesh to those whom He deigned to have for | 
His witnesses of the great event, He ascended into heaven, | 
withdrawing Himself even from their sight, and no longer 
conferring on the flesh of any one of them such [a quickening] | 
as He had displayed in His own flesh, in order that they too | 
might live by faith, and in the present world might wait in | 
patience and without visible inducements for the reward of | 
that righteousness in which men live by faith,.—a reward | 
which should hereafter be visibly and openly bestowed. To 
this view and purpose I believe that passage must be referred 
which He speaks concerning the Holy Ghost: “He will not 
come, unless I depart.” For this was in fact saying, Ye 
shall not be able to live that life of faith, which ye shall have 
as a gift of mine,—that is, from the Holy Ghost,—unless I 
withdraw from your eyes that which ye now gaze upon, in 
order that your heart may advance in spiritual growth by 
fixing its faith on invisible things. This righteousness of 
" faith He constantly commends to them. Speaking of the 
Holy Ghost, He says, “He shall reprove the world of sin, 
and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they 
have not believed on me: of righteousness, because I go to 
the Father, and ye shall see me no more"? What is that 
righteousness, whereby men were not to see Him, except as 
the just man who lived by faith? and the hope of which 
we were to cherish by the Spirit in faith,—not looking at the 
things which are seen, but at those which are not seen ? 


Cur. 53. [xxx111,}—An objection of the Pelagians. 


But those persons who say, “If the death of the body has 
happened by sin, we of course ought not to die after that 
remission of sins which the Redeemer has bestowed upon us,” 
do not understand how it is that some things, whose guilt 
God has cancelled and hindered from standing in our way 

1 Hab. ii. 4. ? John xvi. 7. 3 John xvi. 8-10. 


CHAP. LIV.] WHY EFFECT OF SIN OUTLIVES ITS REMISSION. 125 





after this life, He yet permits to remain in the contest of 
faith, in order that they may become the means of instructing 
and exercising those who are advancing in the struggle after 
holiness. Might not some man, by not understanding this, 
raise a question and ask, Since God has said to man because 
of his sin, “ In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat thy bread : 
thorns also and thistles shall the ground bring forth to thee,”? 
how comes it to pass that this labour and toil continues since the 
remission of sins, and that the ground of believers yields them 
this rough and terrible harvest ? Again, since it was said to 
the woman in consequence of her sin, “ In sorrow shalt thou 
bring forth children,” ? how is it that believing women, not- 
withstanding the remission of their sins, suffer the same pains 
in the process of parturition? But it is an incontestable 
fact, that by reason of the sin which they had committed, the 
primeval man and woman heard these sentences pronounced 
by God, and deserved them ; nor is any opposition shown to 
these words of the sacred volume, which 1 have quoted about 
man's labour and woman's travail, except by the man who is 
utterly hostile to the Catholic faith, and an adversary to the 
inspired writings. 

Cuap. 54. [xxxiv. ]- Why punishment is still inflicted, after sin has been 

Jforgiven. 

Dut, inasmuch as there are not wanting persons of such 
character, just as we say in answer to those who raise this 
question, that the punishments of sins are as such before 
remission, whereas after remission they become trials and 
trainings of the righteous; so again to such persons as are 
similarly perplexed about the death of the body, our answer 
ought to be so drawn as to show both that we acknowledge 
the said death to have accrued because of sin, and that we 
are not discouraged by the punishment of sins having been 
bequeathed to us for an exercise of discipline, in order that 
our great fear of it may be overcome by us as we advance in 
holiness. For if only small virtue accrued to “the faith 
which worketh by love" to conquer the fear of death, there 
would be no great glory for the martyrs; nor could the 
Lord say, “ Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay 

! Gen. iii. 18, 19. 4 Gen. i1, 16. 


126 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





down his life for his friends ;?* which John in his epistle 


expresses in these terms: “ As He laid down His life for us, 
so ought we to lay down our lives for the brethren.” In vain, 
therefore, would commendation be bestowed on the most emi- 
nent suffering in encountering or despising death for righteous- 
ness’ sake, if there were not in death itself a really great and 
very severe trial. And the man who overcomes the fear of it 

, by his faith, procures a great renown and just recompense even 

for his faith itself Wherefore it ought to surprise no one, 
that the death of the body could not possibly have happened 
to man unless sin had been previously committed, of which it 
was to become even the penal consequence; and that after 
the remission of their sins it happens to the faithful, in order 
that in their triumphing over the fear of it, it may afford them 
opportunity of exhibiting holiness with fortitude. 


Cup. 55.—To recover the righteousness which had been lost by sin, man has to 
struggle hard, with abundant labour and sorrow. 


The flesh which was originally created was not that sinful 
flesh in which man refused to maintain his holiness amidst 
the enticements of Paradise; whence God determined that 
sinful flesh should propagate itself after it had sinned, and 
have to struggle hard for the recovery of holiness, by many toils 
and troubles. Therefore, after Adam was driven out of Para- 
dise, he had to dwell over against Eden,—that is, over against 
| the garden of delights,—to EO that it is by T and 

i sorrows, which are the very contraries of delights, that sinful 

flesh had to be educated, after it had failed de its first 
pleasures to maintain its holiness, previous to its becoming 
‘sinful flesh. As therefore our first parents, by their subse- 
quent return to holy living, whence they are fairly supposed 
to have been released from the worst penalty of their sentence 
by the blood of [Christ, their] Lord, were still not deemed 
worthy to be recalled to Paradise during their life on earth, 
so in like manner our sinful flesh, even if a man lead a right- 

| eous life in it after the remission of his sins, does not doe 
| to be immediately exempted from that death which it has 
derived from its propagation of sin? 


1 John xv. 13. 21 John iii. 16. 
3 See also his treatise, De Naturá et Gratid, ch. xxiii. 





CHAP. LVIL] PROBATION, EVEN AFTER REMISSION. Tap 





CnAr. 56.—The case of David, in illustration. 


Some such thought has occurred to us about the patriarch 
David, in the Book of Kings. After the prophet was sent to 
him, and was threatening him with the evils which were to 
arise from the anger of God on account of the sin which he 
had committed, he acknowledged his offence, and received 
pardon for it, for the prophet met his confession with the 
assurance that the crime and guilt had been remitted to him ; 
but yet, for all that, the evils with which God had threatened 
him followed in due course, so that he was brought low by 
his son. Now why is not an objection at once raised here ? 
If it was on account of his sin that God threatened him, why, 
when the sin was done away, did He fulfil His threat? Only, 
if the cavil had been raised, it would have been a most correct 
| answer to say, that the remission of the sin was given that 
|the man might not be hindered from gaining the life eternal; 
| but the threatened evil was still carried into effect, in order 
| that the man's piety might be exercised and approved in the 
|lowly condition to which he was reduced. Thus it came to 
' pass that God both inflieted on that man the death of his 
body, because of his sin, and, after his sins were forgiven, 
released him not [from his doom,] in order that he might be 
exercised in righteousness. 

Cuap. 57. [xxxv.] 

Let us hold fast, then, the confession of this faith, without 
faltering or failure. One alone is there who was born without 
sin, in the likeness of sinful flesh, who lived without sin amid 
the sins of others, and who died without sin on account of 
our sins. ^ Let us turn neither to the right hand nor to the 
left"! For to turn to the right hand is to deceive oneself, by 
saying that we are without sin; and to turn to the left is to 
surrender oneself to one's sins with a sort of impunity, in I 
know not how perverse and depraved a recklessness. “ God 
indeed knoweth the ways on the right hand,"? even He who 
alone is without sin, and is able to blot out our sins; ^ but 
the ways on the left hand are perverse and crooked,"? they are 


1 Prov. iv. 27. 
? Same verse [in the Septuagint; the clause occurs not in the Hebrew]. 
3 [See the last note.] 


128 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





in friendship with sins. Of such inflexibility were those 
youths of twenty years, who foretokened in figure God's new 
people; they entered the land of promise; they, it is said, 
turned neither to the right hand nor to the left? Now this 
age of twenty is not to be compared with the age of children's 
innocence. If I mistake not, this number is the shadow and 
echo of a mystery. For the Old Testament has its excellence 
in the five books of Moses, while the New Testament is most 
refulgent in the authority of the four Gospels. These numbers, 
when multiplied together, reach to the number twenty: four 
times five, or five times four, are twenty. Such a nation (as 
I have already said), instructed in the kingdom of heaven by 
the two Testaments—the Old and the New—turning neither 
to the right hand, in a proud assumption of righteousness, nor 
to the left hand, in a reckless delight in sin, shall enter into 
the land of promise, where we shall have no longer either to 
pray that sins may be forgiven to us, or to fear that they may 
be punished in us, having been freed from them all by that 
Redeemer, who, not being “ sold under sin,"? “ hath redeemed 
Israel out of all his iniquities,"* whether committed in the 
actual life, or derived from the original transgression. 


Cuap. 58. [xxxvr.] 


It is no small concession to the authority and truthfulness 
of the inspired pages which those persons have made, who, 
although unwilling to admit openly in their writings that re- 
mission of sins is necessary for infants, have yet confessed that 
they need redemption. Nothing that they have said [hereon] 
differs indeed from another word [known to us all] even that 
which is derived from the very instruction of Christ. "Whilst 
by those who faithfully read, faithfully hear, and faithfully 
hold fast the Holy Scriptures, it cannot be doubted that from 
that flesh, which first became sinful flesh by man’s wilfulness, 
and which has been subsequently transmitted to all through 
successive generations, there has been propagated a sinful flesh 
[in every instance of birth,] with the single exception of that 
“likeness of sinful flesh,”°—which likeness, however, there could 


1 Num. xiv. 29, 81. ? Josh. xxiii. 6, 8. 3 Rom. vii. 14. 
* Ps. xxv. 22. 5 Rom. viii. 3. 


CHAP. LIX.] | INTRICATE QUESTIONS ON THE SOUL. 129 





not have been, had there not been also the reality of sinful 
flesh. 


CHAP. 59.— Whether the soul is propagated ; on obscure points, concerning 
which the Scriptures give us no assistance, we must be on our guard against 
Jorming hasty judgments and opinions ; the Scriptures are clear enough on 
those subjects which are necessary to salvation. 

Concerning the soul, indeed, the question arises, whether it 
is propagated by birth in the same way [as the flesh,] and 
bound by the same guilt and condemnation, which needs 
remission in its case (for we cannot say that it is only the 
flesh of the infant, and not his soul also, which requires the 
help of a Saviour and Redeemer; or that the latter must 
not be included in that thanksgiving in the Psalms, where we 
read and repeat, * Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not 
all His benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities ; who 
healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from de- 
struction”*) ; or if it be not likewise propagated, whether, by 
the very fact of its being mingled with and overloaded by the 
sinful flesh, it still has need of the remission of its own sin, 
and requires a redemption of its own, leaving it to God to 
determine, in the height of His foreknowledge,’ what infants 
they are that deserve? not to be absolved from that guilt and 
condemnation, even before they are born, and have yet in any 
instance ever done any actual good or evil. The question also 
arises, how God (even if He does not create souls by natural 
propagation) can yet not be the Author of that very sin and 
guilt, on account of which redemption by the sacrament is 
necessary to the infant’s soul. The subject is a wide and im- 
portant one,* and requires another treatise. The discussion, 
however, so far as I can judge, ought to be conducted with 
temper and moderation, so as to deserve the praise of cautious 
inquiry, rather than the censure of headstrong assertion. For 
whenever a question arises on an unusually obscure subject, 
on which no assistance can be rendered by clear and certain 
proofs of the Holy Scriptures, the presumption of man ought 


1 Ps. ciii. 2-4. ? We follow the reading, per summam prescientiam. 

3 Non mereantur. 

* He treats it in his Zpistle, 166 ; in his work, De Animá et ejus Origine ; and 
in his De Libero Arbitrio, 42. 


4 I 


130 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK II. 





to restrain itself; nor should it attempt anything definite by 
leaning to either side. But if I must indeed be ignorant 
concerning any points of this sort, as to how they can be 
explained and proved, this much I should still believe, that 
from this very circumstance the Holy Scriptures would pos- 
sess a most clear authority, whenever a point arose which no 
man could be ignorant of, without imperilling the salvation 
which has been promised him. You have now before you, 
[my dear Marcellinus, | this treatise, worked out to the best of 
my ability. I only wish that its value equalled its length ; 
for its length I might probably be able to justify, only I should 
fear that, by adding the justification, I should stretch the pro- 
lixity beyond your endurance. 


CHAP. I.] INTRODUCTORY. 131 





BOOK THIRD, 


IN THE SHAPE OF A LETTER ADDRESSED TO THE SAME 
MARCELLINUS. 


IN WHICH AUGUSTINE REFUTES SOME ERRORS OF ‘PELAGIUS ON THE QUESTION OF 
THE MERITS OF SINS AND THE BAPTISM OF INFANTS—BEING SUNDRY ARGU- 
MENTS OF HIS WHICH HE HAD INTERSPERSED AMONG HIS EXPOSITIONS OF 
SAINT PAUL, IN OPPOSITION TO ORIGINAL SIN. 


To his beloved son Marcellinus, Augustine, bishop and servant of 
Christ and of the servants of Christ, sendeth greeting in the 
Lord. 


Cuap. 1, [1.]—Pelagius, a holy man, held in high esteem ; his expositions on 
Saint Paul. 


HE questions which you proposed that I should write to 
you about, in opposition to those persons who say that 
Adam would have died even if he had not sinned, and that 
nothing of his sin has passed to his posterity by natural trans- 
mission; and especially on the subject of the baptism of 
infants, which the universal Church, with most pious and 
maternal care, maintains by constant celebration ; and whether 
in this life there are, or have been, or ever will be, children of 
men without any sin at all—I have already fully discussed in 
the two preceding books, which, [as I have said,| have ex- 
tended to a great length. And I venture to think that if in 
them I have not met all the points which perplex all men's 
minds on such matters (an achievement which, I apprehend,— 
nay, which I have no doubt, —lies beyond the power either of 
myself, or of any other person), I have at all events effected 
something in the shape of a firm ground on which those who 
defend the faith delivered to us against the novel opinions of 
its opponents may at any time take their stand, armed for the 
contest. However, within the last few days I have read some 


132 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





writings by Pelagius—-a holy man, as I am told, who has 
made no small progress in the Christian life, —containing some 
brief expository notes on the epistles of the Apostle Paul ; 
and therein I found, on coming to the passage where the 
apostle says, * By one man sin entered into a world, and 
death by sin; and so death passed upon all men,” ' an argument 

which is eee by those persons who say that infants are not 
burdened with original sin. Now I confess that I have not 
refuted this argument in my lengthy treatise, because it did 
not indeed once occur to me that anybody was capable of 
thinking or expressing such sentiments. Being, however, 
unwilling to increase the bulk of the work, which I had con- 
cluded, I have thought it right to insert in this epistle, [as an 
appendix to my treatise,] both the argument itself in the very 
words in which I read it, and the answer which it seems to 
me proper to give to it. 

Cuap. 2. [11.]—Pelagius’ objection ; infants reckoned among the number of 

Sauithful believers. 

In these terms, then, stands the-argument in question :— 
“They who are opposed to the [opinion of the] propagation of 
sin endeavour to impugn it thus: If (say they) Adam’s sin 
was injurious even to those who do not sin, therefore Christ’s 
righteousness also profits those who do not believe; because 
[the apostle] says, ‘In like manner (nay, much more) are 
men saved by one, as they had previously perished by one.’ ” 
Now to this argument, I repeat, I advanced no reply in the 
two books which I previously addressed to you; nor, indeed, 
had I proposed to myself such a task. But in now [calling 
your attention to the new subject,] I beg you first of all to 
observe how, when they say, “If Adam's sin is injurious even 
to those who do not sin, then Christ's righteousness also profits 
those who do not believe,” they judge most absurdly and 
falsely, [in supposing, first,] that the righteousness of Christ 
profits those who do not believe, and thence thinking to put 
together such an argument as this: That even as the first 
man's sin could possibly do no injury to infants who commit 
no sin, even so the righteousness of Christ is unable to benefit 
any who do not believe. Let them therefore tell us what is 

1 Rom. v. 12, 


CHAP. IIL] OUR INTEREST IN THE FIRST AND SECOND ADAM. 133 





the use of Christ's righteousness to baptized infants; let them 
by all means tell us what they mean. For of course, since 
they do not forget that they are Christians themselves, they 
have no doubt that there is some use and benefit. But what- 
ever be this benefit, it is incapable (as they themselves assert) 
of benefiting those who do not believe. Whence they are 
obliged to class baptized infants in the number of believers, 
and to assent to the authority of the Holy Catholic Church, 
which does not account them unworthy of the name of be- 
lievers to whom the righteousness of Christ could be, according 
to them, of no use except as believers. As, therefore, by the 
answer of their sponsors, through whose agency they are born 
again, the Spirit of holiness infuses into them that faith which, 
of their own will they could not yet have attained, so the 
sinful flesh of those through whom they are born transfers to 
them that injury, which they have not yet contracted by any 
conduct of their own. And even as the Spirit of life regene- 
rates them as believers in Christ, so also the body of death 
had generated them as sinners in Adam. The one makes 
them children of the flesh, the other children of the Spirit; 
the one [makes them] children of death, the other children 
of the resurrection; the one the children of the world, the 
other the children of God; the one children of wrath, the 
other children of mercy; and thus the one binds them under 
original sin, the other liberates them from the bond of every 
sin. 
CuapP. 3. 

We are driven at last to yield our assent on divine autho- 
rity to that which we are unable to investigate with even the 
clearest intellect. It is well that they remind us themselves 
that Christ’s righteousness is unable to profit any but believers, 
and that they yet allow that it. yields some profit to infants ; 
for from this admission it follows (as we have already said) 
that they must, without any hesitation, find room for baptized 
infants among the number of believers. Consequently, if they 
are not baptized, they will have to rank amongst those who 
do not believe; and therefore they will not even have life, — 
but “the wrath of God abideth on them,” inasmuch as “he 
that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of 


134 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





God abideth on him;”* and they are under judgment, since 
“he that believeth not is condemned already ;”? and they 
shall be condemned, since “he that believeth, and is baptized, 
shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.” ? 
Our opponents must already see to it with what justice they 
can attempt or strive to maintain that human beings who are 
without sin have nothing to do with eternal life, but apper- 
tain to the wrath of God, and incur the divine judgment and 
condemnation, if [infants]—as they cannot have any actual sin, 
so also—have within them no original sin. 


CuAr. 4, 


To all the other points which Pelagius makes them urge 
who argue against original sin, I have, I think, sufficiently and 
clearly replied in the two former books of my lengthy treatise. 
Now if my reply should seem to any persons to be brief or ob- 
scure, I beg their nardon, and request the favour of their coming 
to equitable terms with those who perhaps censure my treatise, 
not for being too brief, but rather as being too long; whilst 
any who still fail to understand the points which I cannot 
help thinking I have explained as clearly as the nature of the 
subject allowed me, shall certainly hear no blame or reproach 
from me for indifference, or want of understanding me* I 
would rather that they should pray God to give them. intelli- 
gence. 

Cuap. 5. [111.]—Pelagius praised by some; arguments against original sin 

proposed by Pelagius in his Commentary. 

But we must not indeed omit to observe that this good 
and praiseworthy man (as they who know him describe him 
to be) has not of himself advanced this argument against the 
natural transmission of sin, but has reproduced what is alleged 
by those persons who disapprove of the doctrine, and that not 
merely so far as I have just quoted and confuted the allega- 
tion, but also as to those other points on which I have now 
further undertaken to furnish a reply. Now, after saying, * If, 
according to them, Adam’s sin was injurious even to those who 
do not sin, therefore Christ's righteousness also profits those 


1 John iii. 36. ? John iii. 18. 3 Mark xvi. 10. 
* [Or, ** because they lack my own faculty of understanding the subject." ] 





CHAP. VL]  PELAGIUS' EARLY DIFFIDENCE IN ERROR. 135 





who'do not believe,’—which sentence, you will perceive from 
what I have said in answer to it,is not only not repugnant 
to what we hold, but even reminds us what we ought to hold, 
—he at once goes on to add, “Then they contend, if baptism 
cleanses away that old sin, those children who are born of two 
baptized parents must needs be free from this sin, for they could 
not possibly have transmitted to those who came after them 
that which they did not possess themselves.  Desides," says 
he, *if the soul is not born by natural propagation, but only 
the flesh, then only the latter has transmitted sin, and it alone 
deserves punishment; for they allege that it would be unfair 
for the soul, which is only now born, and comes not of the 
stock of Adam, to have to bear the burden of so old a sin, 
with which it has nothing to do. They say, likewise," says 
Pelagius, *that it cannot by any means be conceded that 
God, who remits to a man his own sins, should impute to him 
the sin of another." 
CHAP. 6. | 

Pray, don't you see how Pelagius has inserted the whole of 
this paragraph in his writings, not in his own person, but in 
that of others, being so entirely sure of the novelty of this 
unheard-of doctrine, which is now beginning to raise its voice 
against the ancient opinion so natural to the Church, that he 
was actually ashamed or afraid to acknowledge it himself? 
And probably he does not really believe that a man is born. 
without sin for whom he confesses that baptism to be neces- 
sary by whieh comes the remission of sins, or that the man 
is condemned without sin who must be reckoned, when unbap- 
tized, in the class of non-believers, since the gospel of course 
cannot deceive us, when it most clearly asserts, * He that 
believeth not shall be damned ;"! or, lastly, that the image of 
God, when without sin, is not admitted into the kingdom of 
God, forasmuch as *except a man be born of water and of 
the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ;"? and 
so he must either be precipitated into eternal death without 
sin, or (what is still more absurd) must have eternal life out- 
side the kingdom of God ; for the Lord, when foretelling what 
He should say to His people at last,—" Come, ye blessed of 

1 Mark xvi. 16. ? John iii. 5. 


136 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the 
beginning of the world,” —also clearly indicated what the 
kingdom was of which He was speaking; for He thus con- 
cludes: “So these shall go away into everlasting punishment ; 
but the righteous into life eternal.” ? "These opinions, then, 
and others which spring from the central error, I believe so 
worthy a man, and so good a Christian, does not at all accept, 
as being too perverse and repugnant to Christian truth. But 
it is quite possible that he may, by the very arguments of 
those who deny the transmission of sin by birth, be still so 
far distressed as to be anxious to hear or know what can be 
said in reply to them; and on this account he was both 
unwilling to keep silent the tenets propounded by them who 
deny the natural transmission of sin, in order that he might 
get the question in due time discussed, and, at the same time, 
declined to report the opinions in his own person, lest he 
should be supposed to entertain them himself . 


Cuap. 7. [1v.]—P'roof of original sin in infants. 

Now, although I may not be able myself to refute the 
arguments of these men, I yet see how necessary it is to 
adhere closely to the clear and undoubted statements of the 
Scriptures, in order that the obscure passages may be ex- 
plained by help of these, or, if the mind be as yet unequal to 
the function of either perceiving them when explained, or 
investigating them whilst abstruse, that they may be received 
and believed without misgiving. But what can be plainer 
than the many weighty testimonies of the inspired Scriptures, 
which afford to us the clearest proof possible that without 
union with Christ there is no man who can attain to eternal 
life and salvation; and that by the judgment of God no man 
can unjustly be damned,—that is, separated from that life and 
salvation? The inevitable conclusion from which truths is 
this,that (as nothing else is effected when infants are baptized 
than their incorporation into the church, —in other words, than 
their union with the body and members of Christ) unless this 
benefit [of the sacrament] be bestowed upon them, they are 
|] manifestly in danger of? damnation. Damned, however, they 

1 Matt. xxv. 34. ? Matt. xxv. 46. 3 Pertinere ad. 





CHAP. VIIL] INFANT BAPTISM PROVES ORIGINAL SIN. pa 





could not be if they really had no sin. Now, since their 
tender age could not possibly have contracted sin by any act 
and conduct of their own, it remains for us, even if we are as 
yet unable to understand [the mystery,| at least to believe 
that infants inherit original sin. 


Cnr. 8.—Jesus is the Saviour even of infants. 


And therefore, if there is any ambiguity in the apostle’s 
words when he says, “By one man sin entered into the 
world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men;"! 
and if it is possible for them to be drawn aside, and applied 
to some other sense,—is there anything ambiguous in this 
statement: “ Except a man be born again of water and of the 
Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God?”? Is this, 
again, ambiguous: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He 
shall save His people from their sins?"? Is there any doubt 
of what this means: * The whole need not a physician, but 
they that are sick ?"*— in other words, Jesus is not needed 
by those who have no sin, but by those who are to be saved 
from sin. Is there anything, again, uncertain in this: * Ex- 
cept men eat the flesh of the Son of man,” that is, become 
partakers of His body, “they shall not have life?"? By 
these and similar statements, which I now pass over,—so 
absolutely clear in the light of God, so absolutely certain by 
His authority are they,—does not truth proclaim with un- 
faltering tongue, that unbaptized infants not only cannot 
enter into the kingdom of God, but cannot have everlasting 
life, except in the body of Christ, into which, that they may 
receive incorporation, they are washed in the sacrament of 
baptism? Does not truth, without any ambiguity, testify 
that for no other reason are they carried by pious hands to 
Jesus (that is, to Christ, the Saviour and Physician), than that 
they may be healed of the plague of their sin by the medicine 
of His sacraments? Why then do we delay so to understand 
the apostle's very words, of which we perhaps used to have 
some doubt, that they may agree with these statements of 
which we can have no manner of doubt ? 


1 Rom. v. 12. ? John iii. 5. 3 Matt. 1. 21. 
= Matt, 1x. 192, 5 See John vi. 538. 


138 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK IIL. 





CHAP. 9. 


To me, however, no doubt presents itself about the whole 
of this passage, in which the apostle speaks of the condemna- 
tion of many through the sin of one, and the justification of 
many through the righteousness of One, except as to the 
words, “the figure of the Adam that was to come"! For this 
phrase in reality not only suits the sense which understands 
that Adam’s posterity were to be born of the same form as 
himself along with sin, but the words are also capable of being 
drawn out into several distinct meanings. For we have our- 
selves actually contended for various senses from the words in 
question at different times,’ and very likely we shall propound 
yet another view, which, however, will not be incompatible 
with the sense here mentioned; even Pelagius has not always 
expounded the passage in one way. All the rest, however, of 
the passage in which these doubtful words occur, if its state- 
ments are carefully examined and treated, as I have tried my 
best to do in the first book of this treatise, will not (in spite 
of the obscurity of style necessarily engendered by the subject 
itself) fail to show the incompatibility of any other meaning 
than that which has secured the adhesion of the Catholic 
Church from the earliest times—that believing infants have 
obtained through the baptism of Christ the remission of original 
sin. 

Cua». 10. [v.]—He shows that former writers had never entertained a doubt 
about the original sin of infants. 

Accordingly, it is not without reason that the blessed 
Cyprian? carefully shows how from the very first the Church 
holds this as a well understood article of faith, even when he 
was asserting the fitness of infants only just born to receive 
Christ's baptism, on a certain occasion when the question was 
submitted to him—whether this ought to be administered 
before the eighth day. He endeavoured, as far as he could, 
to prove these new-born babes perfect, that no one should be 


1 ** Adam formam futuri ;" see Rom. v. 14. 

? Comp. above, Book 1. c. 13; Epist. 157; De Nuptiis, ii. 44; and Contra 
Julianum, vi. 8. 
.. 3 See Cyprian’s Epistle, 64 (ad Fidum) ; also Augustine, Zpist. 166; De Nup- 
tiis, il. 49; Contra Julianum, ii. 5; Ad Bonifacium, iv. 8; Sermons, 294. — 





CHAP. X.] CYPRIAN'S TESTIMONY. 139 





led to suppose, from the number of the days (on the ground 
that infants used formerly to be circumcised on the eighth 
day), that they so far lacked perfection. However, after be- 
stowing upon them the full support of his argument, he still 
confessed that they were not free from original sin; if indeed 
he had denied this, he would have removed all reason for the 
very baptism which he was maintaining their fitness to re- 
ceive. You can, if you wish, read for yourself the epistle of 
the illustrious martyr On the Baptism of Little Children ; for 
it cannot fail to be within reach at Carthage. But be this 
as it may, I have deemed it right to transcribe some few 
statements of it into this letter of mine, so far as applies to 
the question before us; and I pray you to mark them care- 
fully. “Now with respect,” says he, “to the case of infants, 
whom you declared it would be improper to baptize if pre- 
sented within the second and third day after their birth, [con- 
tending] that due regard ought to be paid to the old law of 
circumcision, as if you thought that the infant should not be 
baptized and sanctified before the eighth day after its birth, 
[I can only say] that a far different view has been formed of 
the question in our council Not a man there assented to 
what you thought ought to be done, but the whole of us 
rather determined that to no human being whatever, as soon 
as born, ought God's mercy and grace to be denied. For since 
the Lord in His gospel says, ‘The Son of man is not come 
to destroy men's lives, but to save them; ! so far as in us 
lies, not a soul ought, if possible, to be lost". You observe 
how in these words [Cyprian] supposes that it is fraught with 
ruin and death, not only to the flesh, but also to the soul, for 
one to depart this life without the sacrament of salvation. 
Wherefore, if he said nothing else, it was at least competent to 
us to conclude from his words that without sin the soul could 
not perish. See, however, what (when he shortly afterwards 
maintains the innocence of infants) he at the same time allows 
concerning them in the plainest terms: “But if" says he, 
“anything could hinder men from the attainment of grace, 
then their heavier sins might well hinder those who have 
reached the stages of adults, and advanced life, and old age. 
! Luke ix. 56. | 


140 ON FORGIVENESS.OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





e 


Since, however, remission of sins is given even to the greatest 
sinners after they have believed, however much they have 
previously sinned against God, and since nobody is forbidden 
baptism and grace, how much more ought an infant not to be 
forbidden [these benefits,] who since his recent birth has done 
nothing amiss, except that from having been born after Adam 
in the flesh he has contracted from his very birth the con- 
tagion of the primeval death! How, too, does this fact con- 
tribute in itself the more easily to their reception of the 
forgiveness of sins, that the remission which they have is 
not of their own sins, but those of another !" 


Czuar. 11. 


You see with what confidence this great man expresses 
himself after the ancient and undoubted rule of faith. In 
advancing such very certain statements, his object was by help 
of these firm conclusions to prove the uncertain point which 
had been submitted to him by his correspondent, and concern- 
ing which he informs him that a decree of a council had been 
passed, to the effect that, if an infant were brought [to the 
font] even before the eighth day after his birth, no one should 
hesitate to baptize him. Now it was not then determined or 
affirmed by the council as a novel opinion, or struck out for 
the occasion by the opposition of any person, that infants 
were held bound by original sin; but [this doctrine was 
declared incidentally] when another controversy was being 
conducted, and the question was discussed, in reference to the 
law of the circumcision of the flesh, whether they ought to 
be baptized before the eighth day. None agreed with the 
person who held that they ought not to be so baptized, on the 
ground that it was not an open question admitting of discus- 
sion, whether the soul would forfeit eternal salvation if it 
ended this life without obtaining the sacrament of baptism, 
for this point was regarded as fixed and unassailable; but at 
the same time infants fresh from the womb were held to be 
affected only by the guilt of original sin. On this account, 
although remission of sins was easier in their case, because | 
the sins were derived from another, it was nevertheless in- 
dispensable. It was on sure grounds like these that the 


CHAP. XII.] ST. JEROME'S TESTIMONY. 141 





uncertain question Of the Eighth Day was solved, and the 
council decided that after a man was born, not a day ought 
to be lost in rendering him that succour which should pre- 
vent his perishing for ever. When also a reason was given 
for the circumcision of the flesh as being itself a shadow 
of the circumcision which was to be, its purport was not that 
we should understand that baptism ought to be admini- 
stered to an infant on the eighth day after his birth, but 
rather that we are spiritually circumcised in the resurrection 
of Christ, who rose from the dead on the third day, indeed, 
after He suffered, but (reckoning by the days of the weekly 
cycles as their periods advanced) on the eighth—in other 
words, on the first day after the Sabbath [or full week]. 

Cuap. 12. [v1.]}—Zhe universal consensus respecting original sin. 

And now, again, with a novel boldness stimulated by an 
obscure controversy, certain persons are endeavouring to infuse 
uncertainty in our minds on a point which our forefathers 
used to bring forward as most certainly fixed, whenever they 
would solve such questions as seemed to some men to partake 
of uncertainty. When this controversy, indeed, first began, I 
am unable to say; but one thing I know, that even the holy 
Jerome, who is actually in our own day renowned for great 
industry and learning in ecclesiastical subjects, applies [our 
doctrine] as incontrovertibly furnishing most certain proof 
towards the solution of sundry questions treated in his writ- 
ings. For instance, in his commentary on the prophet Jonah, 
when he comes to the passage where even infants are men- 
tioned as afflicted with the fast, he says:! “The greatest 
age comes first, and then all the rest is pervaded down to 
the least? For there is no man without sin, whether the 
span of his age be but that of a single day, or he reckon many 
years to his life. For if the very stars are unclean in the 
sight of God? how much more is a worm and corruption, 
such as are they who are held bound by the sin of the offend- 
ing Adam?" If, indeed, we could readily interrogate this 
most learned man, how many authors who have treated of the 
divine Scriptures in both languages! and have written on 


1 St. Jerome, on Jonah iii. 3 Ver. 8. 3 Job xxv. 4. 
* Or ** who have treated of both languages of the divine Scriptures.” 


142 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





Christian controversies, would he mention to us, who have 
never held any other opinion since the Church of Christ was 
founded, neither receiving any other from their forefathers, 
nor handing down any other to their posterity? My own 
reading, indeed, has been far more limited, but yet I do not 
recollect ever having heard of any other doctrine on this point 
from Christians, who accept the two Testaments, whether living 
in the Catholic Church, or even if found in any heretical or 
schismatic body. I do not remember, I say, that I have at 
any time found any other doctrine in such writers as have 
contributed anything to literature of this kind, whether they 
have followed the canonical Scriptures, or have supposed that 
they have followed them, or had wished to be so supposed. 
From what quarter this question has suddenly come upon us 
I know not. A short time ago,’ in a random conversation 
with certain persons while we were at Carthage, my ears 
were suddenly offended with such a proposition as this: “ That 
infants are not baptized for the purpose of receiving remis- 
sion of sin, but that they may be sanctified in Christ"  Al- 
though I was much disturbed by so novel an opinion, still, as 
there was no opportunity afforded me for gainsaying it, and as 
its propounders were not persons whose influence gave me 
anxiety, I readily let the subject slip into neglect and oblivion. 
But, strange to say,’ it is now maintained with burning zeal 
against the Church; it is committed to our permanent notice 
by writing; nay, the matter is brought to such a pitch of dis- 
tracting influence, that we are even consulted on it by our 
brethren [in Christ; and we are actually? obliged to oppose 
its progress both by disputation and by writing. 


Cuap. 13. [virr.]— 77e error of Jovinianus. 


A few years ago there lived at Rome one Jovinian, who is 
said to have persuaded nuns of even advanced age to marry,— 
not, indeed, by any prurient attraction, as if he wanted to 
make any of them his wife, but by contending that virgins 


! We suppose in the year 411, when a conference was held at Carthage with 
the Donatists. Augustine says that he then saw Pelagius ; see his work, De 
Gestis Pelagii, c. 46. 


? Ecce. 3 Ecce. 


_ CHAP. XIII.] JOVINIAN’S TESTIMONY. 143 





who dedicated themselves to the ascetic life had no more 
merit before God than married women who believed. It 
never entered his mind, however, along with this conceit, to 
venture to affirm that the children of any persons are born 
"without original sin. If, indeed, he had added such an 
opinion, the women might have more readily consented to 
marry, to give birth to the purest offspring. When this man's 
writings (for he had the courage to become a writer) were by 
the brethren forwarded to Jerome to refute, he not only dis- 
covered no such error in them, but, while looking out his con- 
ceits for refutation, he found among other passages this very 
clear testimony to the doctrine of man's original sin, from 
which Jerome indeed felt satisfied of the man's belief of that. 
doctrine! These are his words when treating of it: “He 
who says that he abides in Christ, ought himself also to walk 
even as He walked? We give our opponent leave to choose 
which alternative he likes. Does he abide in Christ, or 
does he not? If he does, then, let him walk like Christ. 
If, however, it is a rash thing to undertake to resemble the 
excellences of Christ, he abides not in Christ, because he 
walks not as Christ did. He did no sin, neither was any 
deceit found in His mouth;? who, when He was reviled, 
reviled not again; and as a lamb before its shearer is dumb, 
so He opened not His mouth;* to whom the prince of this 
world came, and found nothing in Him;? whom, though He 
had done no sin, God made sin for us? We, however, accord- . 
ing to the Epistle of James, all commit many sins;^ none of 
us is pure from uncleanness, even if his life should be but of 
one day [upon the earth]? For who shall boast th 
a clean heart? Or who shall be confident the 

from sins? We are held guilty according- | 
Adam's transgression. Accordingly PL | 
hold, I was son in n ity; & 


conceive me. "? 


Ud. 
ne's " NW. ii. near the beginning. 
? John ii, 8... p ? Iss. liii. 9. 4 [sa. liil. 7. 
5Johuxiv.304 ^«^ 6 2 Cor. v. 21. 7 Jas. iii. 2. 
* Job xiv. 5 ep agint). 9 Ps. li. 5. 












^ 





| 
| 





——— 


E 


144 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





Cuar. 14.—The opinions of all controversialists whatever are not, however, 
canonical authority ; original sin, how another’s ; we were all one man in 
Adam. 


I have not quoted these words as if we might rely upon 
the opinions of every disputant as on canonical authority ; but 
I have done it, that it may be seen how, from the beginning 
down to the present age, which has given birth to this novel 
opinion, the doctrine of original sin has been guarded with 
the utmost constancy as a part of the Church’s faith, so that 
it is usually adduced as most certain ground whereon to refute 
other opinions when false, instead of being itself exposed to 
refutation by any one as false. Moreover, in the sacred books 
of the canon, the authority of this doctrine is vigorously as- 
serted in the clearest and fullest way. The apostle exclaims: 
“By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; 
and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” 
Now from these words it cannot certainly be said, that Adam’s 


sin has injured even those who commit no sin, for the Scripture 


says, * In him all have sinned.” Nor, indeed, are those sins 
of infancy so said to be another's, as if they did not appertain 
to the infants at all, inasmuch as all then sinned in Adam, 
when in his nature, by virtue of that innate power whereby 
he was able to produce them, they were still all the one 
Adam; but they are called the sin of another? because as yet 
they were not living their own lives; but the life of the one 
man contained [in itself as a germ] whatsoever was [developed] 
in his future offspring. 
Cn^-. 1o. [virr.] 

* It is," they say, *by no means conceded that the God 
wl remits to a man his own sins should impute to him 
in es ^; He remuts, indeed, but it is to the regenerate in 
Spirit, not to those who are born of the flesh; but He imputes 
to a man no longer the sins of another, St only his own. 
They were no doubt the sins of another, whilst as yet they 
were not in existence who bore them when naturally pro- 
duced; but now the sins belong to them by carnal generation, 
to em they have not yet been remitted by spiritual regene- 


| ration. 


1 Rom. v. 12. 3 Aliens 


CHAP. XVL] THE CHILDREN OF BAPTIZED PARENTS. 145 





Cuap. 16.—Origin of errors ; a simile sought from the foreskin of the 
circumcised, and from the chaff of wheat. 

* But surely,” say they, “since baptism cleanses the primeval 
sin, they who are born of two baptized parents ought to be 
free from the said sin; for these could not have transmitted 
to their children that thing which they did not themselves 
possess.” Now observe whence error usually springs and 
spreads: it is when persons are sharp in starting subjects 
which they are not clever enough to understand. For before 
what audience, and in what words, can I explain how it is 
that birth in a sinful mortal condition brings no obstacle to 
those who have made a beginning in another, even immortal, 
condition of new birth, and at the same time proves an 
obstacle to those whom those very persons against whom it 
was not prejudicial have begotten of the self-same sinful 
condition ? How can a man understand these things, whose 
dull labouring mind is impeded both by its own prejudiced 
opinions and n the chain of its own most stolid obstinacy ? 
If indeed I had undertaken my cause in opposition to those 
who either altogether forbid the baptism of infants, or else 
contend that it is superfluous to baptize them, alleging that 
as they are born of believing parents, they must needs enjoy 
the merit of their parents, then it would have been my duty 
to have roused myself perhaps to greater labour and effort 
for the purpose of refuting their opinion. In that case, if I 
encountered a difficulty before obtuse and contentious men in 
refuting error and inculcating truth, owing to the obscurity 
which beset the nature of the subject, I should probably 
resort to such illustrations as were palpable and at hand; 
and I should in my turn ask them some questions, —how, for 
instance, if they were puzzled to know in what way sin, after 
being cleansed by baptism, still remained in those who were 
begotten of baptized parents, they would explain how it is 
that the foreskin, after being removed by circumcision, should 
still remain in the sons of the circumcised? or again, how 
it happens that the chaff which is winnowed off so carefully 


by human labour still keeps its place in the grain which | 


springs from the winnowed wheat ? 





| 


] 


4 
[| 
4 


146 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





Cuap. 17. [1x.] 


With these, and probably such as these, palpable arguments, 
should I endeavour, as I best could, to persuade those persons 
who believed that sacraments of cleansing were uselessly 
applied to the children of the cleansed, how proper is the 
purpose of baptizing the infants of baptized parents, and how 
it may happen that to a man who has within him the twofold 
seed—of death in the flesh, and of immortality in the spirit 
—that may prove no obstacle, regenerated as he is by the 
Spirit, which is prejudicial to his son, who is generated by 
the flesh ; and that that may be cleansed in the one by 
remission, which in the other still requires cleansing by like 
remission, just as in the case supposed of circumcision, and 


| as in the case of the winnowing and thrashing. But now, 


\when we are contending with those who allow that the 
'children of the baptized ought to be themselves baptized, how 
much more conveniently do we conduct our discussion, when 
we can say: You who assert that the children of such persons 
as have been cleansed from the pollution of sin ought to have 
been born without sin, why do you not perceive that by the 
same rule you might just as well say that the children of 
Christian parents ought to have been born Christians? Why, 
indeed, do you maintain that they ought to become Christians ? 
Was there not in their parents a Christian body, to whom it 
is said, “ Know ye not that your bodies are the members of 
Christ ?”* Perhaps you suppose that a Christian body may 
be born of Christian parents, without having received a 
Christian soul? Well, this would render the case much 
more wonderful still. For you would think of the soul one of 
two things as you pleased,— because, of course, you hold with 
the apostle, that before birth it had done nothing good or 
evil—that it was either derived by natural propagation [to 
the body,] and that just as the body of Christians is Christian, 
so should also their soul be Christian; or else that it was 
created by Christ, either in the Christian body, or for the use 
of the Christian body, and that it ought therefore to have 
been created or transmitted in a Christian condition. Unless 
perchance you shall pretend that, although Christian parents 

+ 1 Cor. vb 15. 


CHAP. XVIIL] ALL INFANTS REQUIRE THE SECOND BIRTH. 147 





had it in their power to beget a Christian body, yet Christ 
Himself was not able to create a Christian soul Yield then 
to the truth, and see that, as it has been possible (as you 
yourselves admit) for one who is not a Christian to be born 
of Christian parents, for one who is not a member of Christ to 
be born of members of Christ, and (that we may meet the 
views of all who, however falsely,are yet in some sense 
possessed with a sense of religion) for a man who is not 
consecrated to be born of parents who are; so also it is quite 
possible for one who is not cleansed and sanctified to be born 
of parents who are in such a state. Now what answer will 
you give us, [explaining] why of Christian parents is born one 
who is not a Christian, unless it be that Christians are made 
not by natural birth, but by regeneration? Resolve therefore 
your own question with a like reason, that no one is cleansed 
from his sins by being born, but all are purified by the second 
birth. And thus of parents who are cleansed, because born 
again, any child who is born must himself be born again, in 
order that he too may be cleansed. For it was quite possible 
for parents to transmit to their children that which they 
possessed not themselves,—thus resembling not only the 
wheat which yielded the chaff, and the circumcised the 
foreskin, but also the instance which you yourselves adduce, 
even that of believers who transmit unbelief to their posterity. 
Now this circumstance does not accrue to the faithful as 
regenerated by the Spirit, but it is owing to the fact that 


they have been born of the flesh,—it is, in short, the fault of © 


their mortal seed. For in respect of the infants whom you 
judge it necessary to make believers by the sacrament of the 
faithful, you do not deny that they were born in unbelief, 
although of believing parents. 
Cnr. 18. [x.]—Is the soul derived by natural propagation? | Pelagius ; sin 
is proved by punishment. ° 

Well, but “if the soul is not propagated, but only the flesh, 
then the latter alone is the propagator of sin, and it only 
deserves punishment.” This is what they think; and they 
say “that it is unjust that the soul which is only recently 
produced, and that not out of Adam’s substance, should 
bear the sin of another committed so long ago.” Now observe, 


* 


148 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





I pray you, how the cautious Pelagius felt the question about 
the soul to be a very difficult one, and acted accordingly (for 
the words which I have just quoted are copied from a book 
of his). He does not say absolutely, * Because the soul is not 
propagated,” but hypothetically, Lf the soul 4s not propagated, 
rightly determining on so obscure a subject (on which we can 
find in Holy Scriptures no certain and obvious testimonies, 
or with very great difficulty discover any) to speak with hesita- 
tion rather than with confidence. Wherefore I too, on my 
side, answer with no hasty assertion this proposition: “If the 
soul is not propagated, where is the justice in that, which has 
been but recently created and is quite free from the contagion 
of sin, being compelled in infants to endure the passions and 
other torments of the flesh, and, what is more terrible still, 
even the attacks of evil spirits? For never does the flesh 
experience any sufferings of this kind without the indwelling 
and sympathizing soul also incurring the misery to even a 
greater degree." If this, indeed, is shown to be just, it may be 
shown, on the same terms, with what justice original sin comes 
to exist in our sinful flesh, to be subsequently cleansed by 
the sacrament of baptism and God's gracious mercy. lf the 
former point cannot be shown, I imagine that the latter point 
is equally incapable of demonstration. We must therefore 
either bear with both positions in silence, and remember that 
we are human, or else we must prepare, at some other time, 
another work “On the Soul,” if it shall appear necessary, dis- 
cussing the whole question with caution and sobriety. 


Cuap. 19. [x1.] 


We must, however, for the present accept what the apostle 
says: “By one man sin entered into the world, and death by 
sin; and so death passed upon all men, in that all have 
sinned ;”* and in such a way, indeed, that we seem not rashly 
and foolishly to oppose the many great passages of Holy 
Scripture, which teach us that no man can obtain eternal life 
without that union with Christ which is effected in Him and 
with Him, when we are imbued with His sacraments and 
incorporated with the members of His body. Now this state- 

1 Rom. v. 12. 


CHAP.XX.] OUR RELATIONS TO ADAM AND CHRIST CONTRASTED. 149 





ment which the apostle addresses to the Romans, * By one 
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so 
death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned,” tallies in 
sense with his words to the Corinthians: “Since by man 
came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead. 
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive"! For nobody doubts that the subject here referred to 
is the death of the body, because the apostle was with much 
earnestness dwelling on the resurrection of the body. If he 
says nothing in this latter passage about sin, it evidently is 
because the question was not about righteousness. Both points 
are mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans, and both points 
are, at very great length, insisted on by the apostle,—sin in 
Adam, righteousness in Christ; also death in Adam, life in 
Christ. However, as I have observed already, I have thoroughly 
examined and opened, in the first book of this treatise, all these 
words of the apostle's argument, as far as I was able, and as 
much as seemed necessary. 
Cuap. 20.— The sting of death, what ? 

But even in the passage to the Corinthians, where he had 
been treating fully of the resurrection, the apostle concludes 
his statement in such a way as not to permit us to doubt that 
the death of the body is the result of sin. For after he had 
said, ^ This corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal must put on immortality: so when this corruptible 
shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put 
on immortality, then," he added, * shall be brought to pass the 
saying which is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. 
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?" 
and at last he subjoined these words: “The sting of death is 
sin; and the strength of sin is the law."? Now, because 
(as the apostle's words most plainly declare) death shall then 
be swallowed up in victory when this corruptible and mortal 
body shall have put on incorruption and immortality,—that is, 
when “Christ shall quicken our mortal bodies by His Spirit 
that dwelleth in us,"—it manifestly follows that the sting of 
the body of this death, which is the contrary of the resurrection 
of the body, is sin. It is the sting, however, by which death 

11 Cor. xv. 21, 22. 21 Cor. xv. 53-56. 


150 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





was made, and not which made death, since it is by sin that 
we die, and not by death that we sin, It is therefore called 
*the sting of death" on the principle which originated the 
phrase “the tree of life,"— not because the life of man pro- 
duced it, but because by it the life of man was made. In 
like manner *the tree of knowledge" was that whereby man's 
knowledge was made, not that which man made-by-his know- 
ledge. So also “the sting of death" is that by which death 
was produced, not that which death made. We similarly use 
the expression “ the cup of death,” [or “ deadly cup;"] when one 
dies of it, or might die of it,—not meaning, of course, a cup 
made by a dying or dead man. The sting of death-is there- 
-fore sin, because by its puncture the human race has been 
' affected with death. Why further ask, of whose death,—the 
death of the soul, or the death of the body? Is it the first 
death which we are all of us now dying, or that second death 
which the wicked shall then endure? There is no occasion 
for plying the question so curiously; there is no room for 
subterfuge. The words in which the apostle expresses the case 
are used by him to answer his own questions: “When this 
mortal," says he, * shall have put on immortality, then shall be 
brought to pass the saying which is written, Death is swallowed 
up in victory.” [Then come his questions:] * O death, where 
is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?” [And here is the 
answer:| “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin 
is the law.” He was treating of the resurrection of the body, 
wherein death shall be swallowed up in victory, when this 
mortal shall have put on immortality. Then over death itself 
shall be raised the shout of triumph, when at the resurrection 
of the body it shall be swallowed up in victory; then shall be 
said to it, * O grave, where is thy victory ? O death, where is 
thy sting?" To the death of the body shall this challenge be 
addressed. For it is immortality which shall absorb the 
victory, when this mortal body shall clothe itself in immortality. 
I repeat it, to the death of the body shall it be said, *Where is 
thy victory ?"—that victory in which thou didst conquer all, so 
that even the Son of God engaged with thee in conflict ; and by 
not shrinking but grappling with thee He overcame. Over the 
dying thou hast triumphed; but thou art thyself conquered in 


CHAP. XXL] WHAT MEANS “THE STING OF DEATH 2” - 151 





the children of the resurrection. Thy victory was but tem- 
porary, in which thou didst absorb the bodies of them that 
die. Our victory will last for evermore, in which thou art 
absorbed in the bodies of them that rise again. “Where is 
thy sting ?"—that is, the sin wherewithal we are punctured 
and poisoned, so that thou didst fix thyself in our very bodies, 
and for so long a time didst hold them in possession. * The 
,Sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law." 
We all sinned in one, so that we all die in one; we received 
| the law, not by amendment according to its precepts to 
|putan end to sin, but by transeression to increase it. For 
“the law entered that sin might abound ;”* and “ the Scripture 
hath concluded ali under sin;"? but “thanks be to God, who 
hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ"? 
in order that * where sin abounded, grace might much more 
abound;"* and “that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ 
might be given to them that believe;"? and that we might 
overcome dE by a deathless ERE and sin, “the sting" 
thereof, by a free and gracious justification. 
Cnuar. 21. [xir.]— The precept about touching the menstruous woman not to be 
Jiguratively understood ; the necessity of the sacraments. 

Let no one, then, on this subject be either deceived or a 
deceiver. The manifest bearing of Holy Scripture which we 
have considered, removes all subterfuge. Even as death is 
in this our mortal body derived from fads beginning, so from 
the first has sin been drawn into this sinful feat of ours, for 
the cure of which, both as it is derived by natural descent and 
augmented by wilful transgression, as well as for the quickening 
of our flesh itself, our Physician came in the likeness of sinful — 
flesh, who is not needed by the sound, but only by the 
sick,—who came not to call the righteous, but only sinners.° 
Therefore the saying of the apostle, when advising believers 
not to separate themselves from unbelieving partners: “ For 
the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the 
unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband: else were your 
children unclean ; but now are they holy,’ must be either so 





1 Rom. v. 20. 2 Gal. iii. 22. 3 1 Cor. xv. 57. 
* Rom. v. 20. 5 Gal. iii. 22. 6 Mark ii. 17. 
71 Cor. vii. 14. 


s: 


152 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





understood as both we ourselves elsewhere, and as Pelagius 
in his notes on this same Epistle to the Corinthians, has 
expounded it, according to the purport of: the examples men- 
tioned in the preceding verses, that sometimes wives gained 
husbands to Christ, and sometimes husbands converted wives, 
whilst the Christian will of even one of the parents prevailed 
towards making their children Christians; or else, if (as the 
apostles words seem rather to indicate, and to a certain de- 
gree persuade us) some particular sanctification is to be here 
understood, which used to sanctify an unbelieving husband or 
wife by the believing partner, and through which the children 
of the believing parents were sanctified,L—whether it was that 
the husband or the wife, during the woman's menstruation, 
abstained from cohabiting together, having learned that duty 
in the law (for Ezekiel classes this amongst the precepts 
which were not to be taken in a metaphorical sense?), or on 
account of some other voluntary sanctification which is not 
there expressly prescribed,—a sprinkling of holiness arising 
out of the close ties of married life and children ;—yet what- 
ever be the sanctification meant, this point must be steadily 
kept in view, that there is no other valid means of making 


Christians and remitting sins, if men do not become believers 


through the sacraments according to the institution of Christ 
and the Church. For neither are unbelieving husbands and 
wives, notwithstanding their intimate union with holy and 
righteous spouses, cleansed of the sin which separates men 
from the kingdom of God and drives them into condemnation, 
nor are the children who are born of parents, however just 


and holy, absolved from the guilt of original sin, unless they 


have been baptized into Christ, in behalf of whom our plea 
should be the more earnest, the less able they are to urge 
one themselves. 


CHAP. 22. [x1t.]—We ought to be anxious to secure the baptism of infants. 


For this is the point aimed at by the controversy, against 


! See Augustine’s work On the Sermon on the Mount, i. 16. 

? See the Commentaries on St. Paul in Jerome’s works, vol. viii, the work of 
either Pelagius or one of his followers. 

3 Ezek. xviii. 6. 


CHAP. XXIII.] THERE ARE NONE WITHOUT SIN. 153 





the novelty of which we have to struggle by the aid of 
ancient truth, that it is clearly altogether superfluous for 
infants to be baptized. Not that this opinion is avowed in 
so many words, lest so firmly established a custom of the 
Church should prove too much for its assailants. If we are 
. taught to render help to orphans, how much more ought we 
to labour in behalf of those children who, though under the 
protection of parents, will still be left more destitute and 
wretched than orphans, should that grace of Christ be denied 
them, which they are all unable to demand for themselves ? 


Cuap. 23. 


As for what they say, that some men, by the use of their 
reason, have lived, and do live, in this world without sin, it 
is to be wished it were true. We should strive to make it 
true, and pray that it become a fact; but, at the same time, 
we must confess that the fact has not yet been realized. For 
to those who wish and strive and worthily pray for this result, 
whatever sins remain in them are daily remitted by means of 
fiscy  elication which we sincerely offer up, “Forgive us 
secky — 288 we forgive our debtors.”* Whosoever shall deny 
ti. ..s prayer is in this life necessary for every righteous 
mar. who knows and does the will of God, except the one 
Holy [King] of saints, greatly errs, and is utterly incapable of 
pleasing even Him whom he praises. Moreover, if he sup- 
poses himself to be such a character, “he deceives himself, 
and the truth is not in him,’ — for no other reason than that 
his thoughts are false. That Physician, then, who is not 
needed by the sound, but by the sick, knows how to heal us, 
and by healing to perfect us unto eternal life; nor does He 
in this world actually take away death, although inflicted 
because of sin, from those whose sins He remits, that they 
may enter on their conflict, having to overcome the fear of 
death with full sincerity of faith. In some cases, too, He de- 
clines to help even His righteous servants, so long as they 
are capable of still higher elevation, to the attainment of a 
perfect righteousness, in order that (while in His sight no 
man living is justified?) we may always feel it to be our 

1 Matt. vi. 12. 21 John i. 8. 3 Ps, cxliii. 2. 


154 ON FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND BAPTISM. [BOOK III. 





duty to give Him thanks for mercifully bearing with us, and 
so, by holy humility, be healed of that first cause of all our 
failings, even the swellings of pride. This letter, as my in- 
tention first sketched it, was to have been a short one; it has 
grown into a lengthy book. Would that it were as perfect 
as it has at last become complete ! 


idily 
‘ang 


am 


EXTRACT FROM 
AUGUSTINE'S “RETRACTATIONS,” 


Boox II. Cuar. 37, 
ON THE FOLLOWING TREATISE, 


“DE SPIRITU ET LITTERA” 


— d 


THE person! to whom I had addressed the three books en- 
titled De Peccatorwm Meritis et emissione, in which I carefully 
discussed also the baptism of infants, informed me, when 
acknowledging my communication, that he was much dis- 
turbed because I declared it to be possible that a man might 
be without sin, if he wanted not the will, by the help of God, 
even though in this life no man either had lived, was living, 
or would live, so perfect in righteousness. He asked how 
I could say that was possible of which no example could be 
adduced. Owing to such an inquiry on the part of this 
person, I wrote the treatise entitled De Spiritu et Littera. 
In handling this subject, I largely considered the apostle's 


l[The Tribune Marcellinus, with whose name are connected many other 
treatises of Augustine. In this work the author informs us that the occasion of 
its composition was furnished by this person, who mooted an inquiry touching 
a statement in the preceding books Concerning the Merits and the Remission of 
Sins. Those books, as we have already indicated, were published A.D. 412. 
Now in the Retractations there is placed after these very books the present 
work Concerning the Spirit and the Letter, —not, indeed, immediately next, but 
in the fourth place after, —so that it was written, no doubt, about the end of the 
same year, A.D. 412, some time previous to the death of Marcellinus; who was 
killed in the month of September of the following year, 418. This present work 
is also mentioned in the book On Faith and Works, c. 14; and in that On 
Christian Doctrine, ii. 33.]—En. BENED. 


155 


156 EXTRACT FROM AUGUSTINE'S “ RETRACTATIONS." 





statement, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.” 1 
In this work, so far as God enabled me, I earnestly discussed 
the point with those who oppose that grace of God which 
justifies the ungodly. While treating, however, of the obser- 
vances of the Jews, who abstain from sundry meats and drinks 
in accordance with their ancient law, I mentioned “ the cere- 
monies of certain meats" [Quarumdam escarum cerimonis ]?^—- 


.. a phrase which, though not used in Holy Scripture, seemed to 


me very convenient, because I remembered that cerimonice is 
tantamount to carimonie [as if from carere, to be without], 
and expresses the abstinence of the worshippers from certain 
things. If, however, there is any other derivation of the 
word, which is inconsistent with the true religion, I meant 
no reference whatever to it; I confined my use to the sense 
above indieated. This work of mine begins thus: ^ After 
perusing the short treatises which I lately drew up for you, 
my beloved son Marcellinus," etc. 
£2 Cor. Hl. 6. ; 2 See chap. 36. [xx1.] 


A TREATISE ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER, 


IN ONE BOOK, 


ADDRESSED TO MARCELLINUS, A.D. 412. 


p 


MARCELLINUS, IN A LETTER TO AUGUSTINE, HAD EXPRESSED SOME SURPRISE 
AT HAVING READ, IN THE PRECEDING WORK, OF THE POSSIBILITY BEING 
ALLOWED OF A MAN CONTINUING, IF HE WILLED IT, WITHOUT SIN IN THE 
PRESENT LIFE, ALTHOUGH THERE EXISTS NOT A SINGLE HUMAN EXAMPLE 
ANYWHERE OF SUCH PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS. AUGUSTINE TAKES THE 
OPPORTUNITY OF DISCUSSING, IN OPPOSITION TO THE PELAGIANS, THE 
SUBJECT OF GOD'S ASSISTING GRACE ; AND HE SHOWS THAT THE DIVINE 
HELP TO THE WORKING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS BY US DOES NOT LIE IN THE 
FACT OF GOD'S HAVING GIVEN US A LAW WHICH IS FULL OF GOOD AND 
HOLY PRECEPTS; BUT IN THE FACT THAT OUR VERY WILL, WITHOUT WHICH 
WE CAN DO NOTHING GOOD, IS ASSISTED AND ELEVATED BY THE SPIRIT OF 
GRACE BEING IMPARTED TO US, WITHOUT THE AID OF WHICH THE DOCTRINE 
OF THE LAW IS ''THE LETTER THAT KILLETH," BECAUSE INSTEAD OF 
JUSTIFYING THE UNGODLY, IT RATHER CORROBORATES THEIR GUILT. HE 
BEGINS TO TREAT OF THE QUESTION PROPOSED TO HIM AT THE COMMENCE- 
MENT OF THIS WORK, AND RETURNS TO IT TOWARDS ITS CONCLUSION ; HE 
SHOWS THAT, AS ALL ALLOW, MANY THINGS ARE POSSIBLE WITH GOD’S 
HELP, OF WHICH THERE OCCURS INDEED NO EXAMPLE ; AND THEN CON- 
CLUDES THAT, ALTHOUGH A PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS IS UNEXAMPLED 
AMONG MEN, IT IS FOR ALL THAT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. 


CrAP. 1. [1. ]J—7"he occasion of this work being written; a thing may be capable 
of being realized, and yet may never reach reality. 
FTER perusing the short treatises which I lately drew 
up for you, my beloved son Marcellinus, touching the 
baptism of infants, and the perfection of man’s righteousness, 
—how that no one in this life seems either to have attained or 
to be likely to attain to it, except only the Mediator, who ex- 
perienced our human condition in the likeness of sinful flesh, 
without any sin whatever,—you wrote me in answer that you 
were embarrassed by the point which I advanced in the first 
book, that it was possible for a man to be without sin, if he 
157 


158 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. II. 





wanted not the will, and was assisted by the grace of God; 
and yet that no one, except Him in whom * all shall be made 
alive?! has ever lived or will live by whom this perfection 
has been attained whilst living here. It appeared to you 
absurd to say that anything was possible of which no example 
ever occurred, —although I suppose you would not hesitate to 
admit that no camel ever passed through a needle's eye,” and 
yet He said that even this was possible with God ; you may 
read, too, that twelve legions? of angels could have fought for 
Christ and rescued Him from suffering, but in fact did not; 
you will find, also, how possible it was for the [Canaanite] 
nations to be exterminated at once out of the land which was 
given to the children of Israel and yet that God willed it 
to be gradually effected? And one may meet with a thousand 
other incidents, the past or the future possibility of which 
we might readily admit, and yet be unable to produce any 
proofs of their having ever really happened. Accordingly, 
it would not be right for us to deny the possibility of a man's 
living without sin, on the ground that amongst men none can 
be found except Him who is in His nature not man only, but 
also God, in whom we could prove such perfection of character 
to have existed. | 


Cuap. 2. (rr.] 


Here, perhaps, you will say to me in answer, that the works 
which I have instanced as not having been realized, although. 
capable of realization, are divine works; whereas a man’s being 
-without sin actually falls in the range of a man’s own work, 
that being indeed his very noblest work which effects a full 
and perfect righteousness complete in every part; and there- 
fore that it is incredible that no man has ever existed, or is 
existing, or will exist in this life, who has achieved such a 
work, if the achievement is possible for a human being. But 
then you ought to reflect that, although this great work, no 
doubt, belongs to human agency to accomplish, yet it is the 





1 1 Cor. xv. 22. 3 Matt. xix. 24. 

* Augustine's text has ‘‘twelve thousand legions,” both here and below in 
chap. lxii. See Matt. xxvi. 53. 

* Dent. txu. 9. 5 Judg. ii. 3. 





. CHAP, IV.] CAN MAN LIVE WITHOUT SIN ? 159 





result of the divine help, and that it is undoubtedly, therefore, 
a divine work; “for it is God who worketh in you both to 
will and to do of His good pleasure." ! 


Cuap. 3.—Theirs is comparatively a harmless error, who say that a man 
lives here without sin. 


They therefore are not a very dangerous set of persons 
(and we must urge them to show, if possible, that such is 
their character), who hold that man lives or has lived here 
without any sin whatever. There are indeed passages of 
Scripture, in which I apprehend it is definitely stated that 
no man who lives on earth, although enjoying freedom of will, 
can be found without sin; as, for instance, the place where 
it is written, ^ Enter not into judgment with Thy servant, © 
[O Lord,] for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified.” ” 
If, however, anybody shall have succeeded in persuading people 
that this text and similar ones ought to be taken in a different 
sense from their obvious one, and shall have shown that some 
man or men have spent a sinless life on earth, whoever not 
merely refrains from opposing him slightly, but also agrees 
with him to the full, is not affected by the ordinary stimulus 
of envy. Moreover, if there neither is, has been, nor will be 
any man endowed with such perfection of holiness (which 
I am more inclined to believe), who yet is firmly set forth | 
and thought to be, to have been, or to be about to be in 
possession of such an excellence, so far as I can judge, no 
great error is made, and certainly not a dangerous one, when 
a man indulges such an opinion, carried away by a certain 
benevolent feeling; but whoever thinks so much of another, 
should not deem himself to be so pure a being, unless he has 
really and clearly discovered all this of himself. 


Cnr. 4.—Theirs is a much more serious error, and requiring a very vigorous 
refutation, who deny God's grace to be necessary for us ; grace, according 
to the Pelagians, is nothing but God's gift to man of free-will, and the teach- 
ing of the law. 

They, however, must be resisted with the utmost alacrity 
and vigour who suppose that the mere power of the human 
will in itself, without God’s help, can either perfect righteous- 
ness or advance towards it in an even tenor; and when they 

1 Phil. ii. 18. ? Ps. cxliii. 2. 


160 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. V. 





begin to be hard pressed about their presumption in asserting 
that this result can be reached without the divine assistance, 
they check themselves, and do not venture to utter such an 
opinion, because they see how impious and insufferable it is. 
But they allege that such attainments are not possible without 
God's help, seeing that God created man with the free choice 
of his will, and, by giving him His commandments, teaches 
man, Himself, how he ought to live; and indeed assists him, 
in that He takes away his ignorance by instructing him in the 
knowledge of what he ought to avoid and to desire in his 
actions; and thus, by means of the free-will naturally implanted 
within him, he enters on the way which is pointed out to him, 
perseveres in a just and pious course of life, and arrives (as 
he deserves) at the blessedness of eternal life. 


Cuap. 5. [r1.]— True grace is the gift of the Holy Ghost, which kindles in 
the soul the joy and love of what is good. 


uw e, however, on our side affirm that the human will is so 
divintly aided in the pursuit of righteousness, that (in addi- 
tion to the fact of man’s being created with a free-will, and 
besides the doctrine which instructs him how he ought to 
live) he receives the Holy Ghost, by whose gift there springs 
up in his mind a delight in, and a love of, that supreme and 
unchangeable good which is God, even in the present state, 
while he still * walks by faith” and not yet “by sight ;”* in 
order that by this gift to him of the earnest, as it were, of the 
free gift, he may conceive an ardent desire to cleave to his 
Maker, and burn to approach to a participation in that true 
light, that it may go well with him from Him to whom he 
owes all that he is. . A man’s free-will, indeed, only avails to 
induce him to sin, if he-k 
even after his duty and his proper/aim shall begin to become 
known to him, unless he take delight and feel a love therein, 
he neither does his duty, nor sets about it, nor effects a 
righteous life. Now, in order that such a course may engage 
our affections, God's “love is shed abroad in our hearts,” not 
through the free-will which arises from ame but *through 





the Holy Ghost, which is given to us."? 


12 Cor. v. 7. 2 Rom. v. 5. 


CHAP. VL] THE LAW WITHOUT THE SPIRIT KILLS. 161 





Cuap. 6. [1v.]— The teaching of the law without the life-giving spirit is ‘the 
letter that killeth." 

For that doctrine which furnishes us with the command to 
live in chastity and holiness is * the letter that killeth," unless 
accompanied with “the spirit that giveth life" Now that 
is not the sole meaning .of the passage, “The letter killeth, 
but the spirit giveth life,’* which merely prescribes our not 
taking in the literal sense any figurative phrase which in the 
proper meaning of its words would only produce nonsense ; 
but it also signifies that we should regard the underlying sense 
of the figurative terms, cherishing the inner man by our 
spiritual intelligence, because “ being carnally-minded is death, 
whilst to be spiritually-minded is life and peace"? If, for in- 
stance, a man were to take in a literal and carnal sense the 
contents of the Song of Solomon, he would minister not to the 
fruit of a pure and luminous charity, but to the feeling of a 
libidinous desire. Therefore I repeat, the apostle’s principle 
is not to be confined to the limited application just mentioned, 
when he says, “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life ;"? 
but it must also (and indeed mostly) be regarded as equivalent 
to what he says elsewhere in the plainest words: “ I had not 
known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet ;"* 
and again, immediately after: “Sin, taking occasion by the 
commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me"? Now from 
this you may see what is meant by “ the letter that killeth.” 
There is indeed no figurative intention in a phrase which 
could not be so regarded in its plain sense, as when it is said, 
“Thou shalt not covet.” This is a very plain and salutary 
precept ; and any man who shall fulfil it will have no sin at 
all. The apostle, indeed, purposely selected this general precept, 
in which he embraced everything, as if this were the voice of 
the law which prohibits us from all sin, when it says, * Thou 
shalt not covet;" for there is no sin committed except by evil 
concupiscence ; so that the law which prohibits this is a good 
and praiseworthy law. Still, when the Holy Ghost withholds 
His help, which inspires us with a good desire instead of this 
evil concupiscence (in other words, diffuses charity in our 

1 2 Cor. iii. 6. 2 Rom. viii. 6. 3 2 Cor. iii. 6. 
* Rom. vii. 7. 5 Rom. vii. 11. 
4 L 


162 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. VII. 





hearts), that law, however good in itself, only augments the 
evil desire by forbidding it. Just like the rush of water which 
flows incessantly in a particular direction; it becomes more 
violent when it meets with any impediment, and when it has 
overcome the stoppage, it falls 1n a greater bulk, and with in- 
creased impetuosity hurries forward in its downward course. 
I know not indeed how it is, but the very object which we 
covet becomes all the more pleasant and desired by being for- 
bidden. Now this is the sin which through the command- 
ment deceives and slays, whenever transgression is actually 
added, which occurs not where there is no law. 


Cuap. 7. [v.]— What is proposed to be here treated ; righteousness the work of 
God, but not unaccompanied with the will of man. 


We will, however, consider, if you please, the whole of this 
passage of the apostle and thoroughly handle it, as the Lord 
shall enable us. For I want, if I shall be able, to prove that 
the apostle’s words, “ The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth 
life," have no reference to figurative phrases,—although even 
in this sense a suitable signification might be obtained from 
them,—but rather plainly to the law, which forbids whatever 
is evil When I shall have proved this, it will more mani- 
festly appear that to lead a holy life is the gift of God,—not 
only because God has given a free-will to man, without which 
there is no living ill or well; and not only because He has 
given him a commandment to teach him how he ought to live ; 
but because through the Holy Ghost He sheds love abroad in 
the hearts? of those whom He foreknew, in order to predestinate 
them ; whom He predestinated, that He might call them; 
whom He called, to justify them ; and whom He justified, that 
He might glorify them? When this point also shall be 
cleared, you will I think, see how vain it is to call those 
things barely possible which are unexampled, when they are 
the works of God,—such as the passage of the camel through 
the needle's eye, which we have already referred to, and other 
similar cases, which to us no doubt are impossible, but easy 
enough to God; [and equally vain] to reckon man’s righteous- 
ness in this class of things, on the ground of its being properly 

1 Rom. iv. 15. ? Rom. vii. 7. 3 Rom. viii. 29, 30. 





CHAP. IX.] MEANING OF THE APOSTLE. 163 





man's work, not God's; [and no less vain] to hold that, if a 
perfect righteousness in the present life is possible, there is no 
reason for supposing that there can be no example forthcoming. 
That the assertion of such propositions is undoubtedly vain 
will be clear enough, after it has been also plainly shown that 
even man's righteousness must be attributed to the operation 
of God, although not taking place without the co-operation 
of man’s will. We therefore cannot refuse to admit that his 
righteousness may be perfect even in this life, because all 
things are possible with God,'—both those which He accom- 
plishes of His own sole will, and those which He appoints to 
be done with the co-operation with Himself of His creature's 
will. Accordingly, whatever of such things He does not effect 
is no doubt without an example in the way of an accomplished 
fact, although before God and in His power it possesses the 
cause of its possible accomplishment, and in His wisdom the 
reason of its not coming to pass; and should this cause escape 
the penetration of the human mind, let not the thinker forget 
that he is but human; nor charge God with folly simply be- 
cause he cannot fully comprehend His wisdom. 

Cuap. 8. Attend, then, carefully, while in his Epistle to the 
Romans the apostle explains and clearly enough shows that the 
passage which he wrote to the Corinthians, * The letter killeth, 
but the spirit giveth life,"" must be understood in the sense 
which we fare already indicated,—that the letter of the law, 

(ein teaches us not to commit sin, kills, if the life-giving 
spirit be absent, forasmuch as it causes sin to be known rather 
than avoided, to be increased rather than diminished, because 
to an evil concupiscence there is now added the transgression 
of the law. 


i 


1 | 


Cnap. 9. [vr. ]— Through the law sin has abounded ; divine grace; the law. 


The apostle, then, wishing to commend the grace which has 
come to all nations through Jesus Christ, and to prevent the 
Jews from extolling themselves at the expense of other people 
on account of their having received the law, first says that sin 
and death came on the human race through one man, and that 
righteousness and eternal life came also through One, expressly 

1 Mark x. 27. ? 2 Cor. iii. 6. 


164 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. IX. 





mentioning Adam as the former, and Christ as the latter; and. 
he then goes on to declare that “the law entered, that the 
offence oe abound: but where sin abounded, grace did 
much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto d even 
so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by 
Jesus Christ our i ^! then, proposing a question for him- 
self to answer, he AES “What shall we say then? ‘Shall we 
continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid"? He 
saw, indeed, that a perverse use might be made by perverse 
men of what he had said: “The law entered, that the offence 
might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more 
abound,”’—he might, in short, be made to say that sin had 
profited by the abundance of grace. Rejecting so worthless an 
insinuation, he answers his question with a * God forbid!” and 
at once subjoins another question: * How shall we, that are 
dead to sin, live any longer therein ?"? as much as to say, 
When grace has brought it to pass that we should die unto sin, 
what else shall we be doing, if we continue to live in it, than 
showing ourselves ungrateful to grace? The man who extols 
the virtue of a medicine does not contend for any advantage 
of diseases and wounds of which the medicine cures him ; on 
the contrary, in proportion to the praise lavished on the 
remedy are the blame and horror which are felt of the diseases 
and wounds healed by the much-extolled medicine. In like 
manner, the commendation and praise which are bestowed 
upon grace imply an equal amount of hatred and condemna- 
tion of all sins. The corrupt state of his weakness had to be 
set forth with convineing clearness to man, who derived no 
advantage and help against his sinful nature in that good and 
holy law, which rather increased than diminished his iniquity ; 
for the law indeed entered, that the offence might abound. 
The purpose of this dispensation was that man, being convicted 
and confounded, might see not only that he wanted a doctor, 
but also that he had a helper in God, who would so direct his 
steps that sin should not lord it over him, and that he might 
be healed by betaking himself to the help of the divine 
mercy ; and that in this way, where sin abounded grace might 


1 Rom. v. 20, 21. 2 Rom. vi. 1, 2. 
3 Rom. vi. 2. 


CHAP. XI.] MYSTERY OF CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION. 165 





e 


much more abound,—not (to be sure) through the merit of the 
sinner, but by the intervention of his Helper. 


Cuap. 10. 


Accordingly, the apostle describes the same medicine as 
mystieally set forth in the passion and resurrection of Christ, 
when he says, * Know ye not, that so many of us as were 
baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death ? 
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death ; that 
like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the 
Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if 
we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we 
shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection : knowing this, 
that our old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin 
might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. 
For he that is dead is justified from sin. Now, if we be dead 
with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him: 
knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dieth no 
more; death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that 
He died, He died unto sin once; but in that He liveth, He 
liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be 
dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ 
our Lord"! Now it is plain enough that here by the mystery 
of the Lord's death and resurrection is figured the fall of our 
old sinful life, and the rise of the new; and that here is de- 
monstrated the abolition of iniquity and the renewal of 
righteousness. Whence then arises this vast benefit to man 
through the letter of the law, except it be through the faith 
of Jesus Christ ? 


Cnar. 11. [vrr.]—Zrom what fountain good works emanate ; pride. 


This holy meditation preserves “the children of men, who 
put their trust under the shadow of God's wings"? so that they 
are * enriched with the fatness of His house, and drink of 
the full stream of His pleasure. For in Him [they find] the 
fountain of life, and in His light shall they see light. For He 
extendeth His mercy to them that know Him, and His right- 
eousness to the upright in heart"? He does not, indeed, extend 


1 Rom. vi. 3-11. ? Ps. xxxvi. 7. 3 Ps, xxxvi. 8-10. 


166 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XII. 





— 


His mercy to them because they know Him, but that they may 
know Him; nor is it because they are upright in heart, but 
that they may become so, that He extends to them His right- 
eousness, whereby He justifies the ungodly." This meditation 
elevates no man with pride: this sin arises when any man 
has too much confidence in himself, and makes himself the 
chief aim of his life. Impelled by this vain feeling, he departs 
from that fountain of life, from the draughts of which is im- 
bibed the holiness which is itself the good man’s life,— 
[departs,] too, from that unchanging light, by partaking of 
which man’s reasonable soul is in a certain sense set on fire, 
and becomes itself a created and reflected luminary ; even as 
* John was a burning and a shining light;"? who notwithstand- 
ing acknowledged the source of his own illumination in the 
words, * Of His fulness have all we received." ? Of whose, 
I would ask, but His, of course, in comparison with whom 
John indeed was no light at all? For “ that was the true 
light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."* 
Therefore, in the previously quoted psalm, after saying, * Ex- 
tend Thy mercy to them that know Thee, and Thy righteous- 
ness to the upright in heart," he adds, “ Let not the foot of 
pride come against me, and let not the hands of sinners move 
. me. There have fallen all the workers of iniquity: they are 
cast out, and are not able to stand." For by that impiety 
which leads each to attribute to himself the excellence which 
is God's, he is cast out into his own native darkness, in which 
consist the works of iniquity ; it is manifestly these works 
which he does spontaneously, and for the achievement of such 
alone is he naturally fit. The works of righteousness he never 
does, except as he receives ability from that fountain and that 
light, which comprises the life that wants for nothing, and 
where is “no variableness, nor the shadow of turning.” ” 


Cuap. 12.— Paul, whence so called ; bravely contends for grace. 


Accordingly Paul, who, instead of his former name Saul? 
chose this new designation, for no other reason, as it appears 
1 Rom. iv. 5. ? John v. 35. 3 John i. 16. 


* John i. 9. 5 Ps. xxxvi. 10. © Ps xxivb 15.12. 
7 Jas. i. 17. 8 Acts xiii. 9. 


CHAP. XUL] ^ JEWISH OBSERVANCE OF THE LAW. 167 





to me, than because he would show himself Jittle,\—the very 
“least of the apostles,” ^— contends with much courage and 
earnestness against the proud and arrogant, and such as plume 
themselves on their own works, in order that he may commend 
the mighty grace of God. This grace, indeed, appeared more 
obvious and manifest in his case, inasmuch as, while he was 
pursuing such vehement measures of persecution against the 
, Church of God as made him worthy of the greatest punish- 
, ment, he found mercy instead of condemnation, and instead of 
“punishment obtained grace. Very properly, therefore, does he 
lift voice and hand in defence of grace. He cares not for the 
envy either of those who understood not a subject too pro- 
found and abstruse for their intelligence, or of those who per- 
versely misinterpreted his own sound words; whilst at the 
same time he unfalteringly preaches that gift of God, whereby 
alone salvation accrues to those who are the children of the 
promise, children of the divine goodness, children of grace and 
mercy, children of the new covenant. In the salutation with 
which he begins every epistle, he is full of it: “ Grace be to 
you, and peace, from God the Father, and from the Lord Jesus 
Christ ;”? whilst in his Epistle to the Romans it forms almost 
the only topic, and is plied with so much persistence and 
variety of argument, as fairly to fatigue the reader’s attention, 
—only the fatigue is so useful and salutary, that it rather 
exercises than breaks the faculties of the inner man. 
Cuar. 13. [virr.]—Keeping the law ; the Jews’ glorying, what; the fear 
of punishment ; the circumeision of the heart. 

Then comes what I mentioned above; he proceeds to show 
up the Jew; he tells him how he calls himself a Jew, but by 
no means fulfils what he promises to do. ‘“ Now,” says he, 
“thou callest thyself a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest 
thy boast of God, and knowest His will, and approvest the 
things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law ; 
and art confident that thou art thyself a guide of the blind, a 
light of them that are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, 
a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of 
the truth in the law. Thou therefore who teachest another, 


1 See Augustine's Confessions, viii. 4. 21 Cor. xv. 9. 
3 See Rom. i. 7, 1 Cor. i. 3, and Gal. i. 3. 


168 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XIII. 





teachest thou not thyself? thou that preachest a man should 
not steal, dost thou steal? thou that sayest a man should 
not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? thou that 
abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? thou that makest 
thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest 
thou God? For the name of God is blasphemed among the 
Gentiles through you, as it is written. Circumcision verily 
profiteth, if thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of 
the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. Therefore, 
if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of the law, shall 
not his uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall 
not uncircumcision which is by nature, if it fulfil the law, 
judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress 
the law? For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly ; neither 
is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh: but he is 
a Jew who is one inwardly ; and circumcision is that of the 
heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not 
of men, but of God.”* Here he plainly showed in what sense 
he said, * Thou makest thy boast of God.” For undoubtedly 
if one who was truly a Jew made his boast of God in the way 
which grace demands (which is bestowed not for merit of 
works, but gratuitously), then his praise would be of God, and 
not of men. But they, in fact, were making their boast of 
God, as if they alone had deserved to receive His law, as the 
Psalmist said: “ He did not the like to any nation, nor His 
judgments has He displayed to them."? And yet, [strange to 
say,| they thought they were fulfilling the law of God by their 
righteousness, when they were rather breakers of it all the 
while. [The law,] accordingly, * wrought wrath"? upon them, 
making sin abound, committed as it was by them who knew 
the law. For whoever did even what the law commanded, 
without the assistance of the Spirit of grace, acted through fear 
of punishment, not from love of righteousness. Hence in the 
sight of God that proceeded not from a good will, which in 
the sight of men appeared as a work; and such doers of the 
law were rather held guilty from the fact that God knew their 
inclination to commit sin, if only it were possible with im- 
punity. Moreover, he calls that “ the circumcision of the 
! Rom. ii. 17-29. ? Ps. cxlvii. 20. 3 Rom. iv. 15. 


CHAP. XV.] BY THE LAW IS THE KNOWLEDGE OF SIN. 169 





heart" which is a will perfectly pure of all unlawful desire ; 
and this is a state which comes not from the letter of the law, 
with its inculcation and threatening, but from the Spirits 
assisting and healing influence. Such doers of the law have 
their praise not of men but of God, who by His grace provides 
the grounds on which they receive praise ; of whom it is said, 
* My soul shall make her boast of the Lord ;”* to whom also 
itis said, “ My boast [or praise] shall be of Thee"? But 
not such are they who would have God praised because they 
are men ; and themselves likewise, because they are righteous. 
Cuap. 14.—4n what respect the Pelagians acknowledge God as the Author of 
our justification. 

* But,” say they, “we do actually acknowledge God to be - 
the Author of our righteousness, in that He gave the law, by 
the teaching of which we have been instructed how we ought 
to live.” But they give no heed to what they read: “ By 
[the deeds of] the law there shall no flesh be justified in the 
sight of God"? This may indeed be possible before men, but 
not in His sight who looks into our very heart and will; 
where He sees that, although the man who fears the law keeps 
a certain precept, he would nevertheless rather do another thing 
if he were permitted. The apostle, however, would have nobody 
suppose that, in the passage just quoted from him, he had 
meant to say that none are justified by that law, which con- 
tains many precepts, under the figure of the ancient sacra- 
ments, and among them circumcision itself, which infants 
were commanded to receive on the eighth day after birth; he 
therefore immediately adds what law he meant, and says, 
* For by the law is the knowledge of sin.”* THe refers them 
to that law of which he afterwards declares, * I had not known - 
sin but by the law ; for I had not known lust except the law 
had said, Thou shalt not covet.”® Now what means this but 
that * by the law comes the knowledge of sin ?" 


Cuap. 15. (1x.]— Te righteousness of God manifested by the law and the 
prophets. 


Here, perhaps, it may be said by that presumption of man, 
which is ignorant of the righteousness of God, and wishes to 


DPs xxxiv. 2. 2 Ps, xxil. 25. 3 Rom. iii. 20. 
4 Rom. iii. 20. 5 Rom. vii. 7. 


170 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. xv. 





establish one of its own, that the apostle was quite correct in 
v/ saying, “ For by the law shall no man be justified,"! inas- 
much as the law merely shows what one ought to do, and 
what one ought to guard against, in order that what the law 
thus points out may be accomplished by the will, and so man 
be justified, not indeed by the power of the law, but by his 
freedom of wil. But I ask your attention, vain man, to what 
follows. “Now the righteousness of God,” says he, “without 
the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the 
prophets.”* Does this then sound a light thing in deaf ears ? 
He says, “The righteousness of God is manifested.” Now 
this righteousness is ignored by those who wish to set up 
one of their own ; they will not submit themselves to it? 
His words are, “ The righteousness of God is manifested :” he 
does not say, the righteousness of man, or the righteousness of 
his will, but the *righteousness of God,"—-—meaning not that 
whereby He is Himself righteous, but that with which He 
endows man when He justifies the ungodly. This is witnessed 
by the law and the prophets; in other words, the law and the 
prophets each afford it their separate testimony. The law, 
indeed, by issuing its commands and threats, and yet justify- 
ing no man, clearly shows in that very circumstance that it is 
| by God's gift, through the help of the Spirit, that a man is 
justified ; and the prophets, because it is in accordance with 
what they predicted, that Christ at His coming accomplished 
it. Accordingly he advances a step further, and adds, * The 
righteousness of God is by faith of Jesus Christ,"* that is, by 
the faith wherewith one believes in Christ ; for here is not 
meant the faith with which Christ Himself believes, just as 
there was not meant the righteousness whereby God is Him- 
self righteous. Both no doubt are ours, but yet they are 
called [in one case] God's, and [in the other] Christ's, because 
it is by their bounty that these gifts are bestowed upon us. 
The righteousness of God then is without the law, but not 
manifested without the law ; for if it were manifested without 
the law, how could it be witnessed by the law? That 
righteousness of God, however, is without the law, which God 
by the Spirit of grace bestows on the believer without the 


! Rom. iii. 20. ? Rom. iii. 21. 3 Rom. x. 8. * Rom. iii. 29. 





CHAP. XVI.] THE LAWFUL USE OF THE LAW. 171 





help of the law,—that is, who is not assisted by the law. 
When, indeed, He by the law discovers to a man his weak- 
ness, it is in order that by faith he may flee for refuge to His 
mercy, and be healed of his infirmity. Concerning His 
wisdom we are told, that "she carries law and mercy upon 
her tongue,"! —the “ law,’ whereby she may convict the 
proud and lofty; the “mercy,” wherewith she may justify 
them when humbled. “The righteousness of God,” then, 
“by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all that believe; for there 
is no difference, inasmuch as all have sinned, and come short 
of’ the glory of God”*—not of their own glory. For what 
have they, which they have not received? Now if they 
received it, why do they glory as if they had not received 
it?? Well, then, they come short of the glory of God; now 
observe what follows: “Being justified freely by His grace.”* 
It is not, therefore, by the law, nor is it by their own will, that 
they are justified ; but they are justified freely by God's grace,— 
not thatthe justification ensues without our will; butour will 
is by the law shown to be weak, that grace may heal its in- 
firmity ; and that being thus healed, our will may fulfil the law, 
not as constituted under the law, nor indeed as wanting the law. 

Cuar. 16. [x.]— How the law was not made for a righteous man ; grace 

justifies freely ; the law of faith. 

Because “ for a righteous man the law was not made ;"* and 
yet “the law is good, if a man use it lawfully^" Now by 
connecting together these two seemingly contrary statements, 
the apostle warns and urges his reader to sift the question and 
solve it too. For how can it be that “the law is good, if a 
man use it lawfully," if what follows is also true: * Knowing 


this, that the law is not made for a righteous man ?"' For 


who but a righteous man lawfully uses the law? Yet it is 
not for him that it is made, but for the unrighteous. Must 
then the unrighteous man, in order that he may be justified,— 
that is, become a righteous man,—lawfully use the law, to lead 
him, as by the schoolmasters hand? to that grace by which 
alone he can fulfil what the law bids him do? Now itis 


! Prov. iii. 16 (Septuagint). 2 Rom. iii. 22, 23. 8 ] Cor. iv. 7. 
5 Rom. iii. 24. "ilim.n8 6 1 Tim. i. 9. 
TYqum.T 8 Gal. iii. 24. 


172 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XVI. 





freely or gratuitously that he is justified thereby,—that is, 
there are no antecedent merits of his own to earn the favour ; 
* otherwise grace is no more grace,'! since it is bestowed on 
us, not because we have done good works, but that we may be 
able to do them, —1in other words, not because we have fulfilled, 
but in order that we may be able to fulfil the law. Now He 
said, “I am come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it"? of 
whom it was said, * We have seen His glory, the glory as 
of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."? 
This is the glory which is meant in the words, * All have 
sinned, and come short of the glory of God ;"* and this the 
grace of which he speaks in the next verse, * Being justified 
freely by His grace."? The unrighteous man therefore law- 
fully uses the law, that he may become righteous; but when 
he has become so, he must no longer use it as a chariot, for 
he has arrived at his journey's end,—or rather (that I may 
employ the apostle’s own simile, which has been already 
mentioned) as a schoolmaster, seeing that he is now fully 
learned. How then is the law not made for a righteous man, 
if it is even necessary for the righteous man, not that he may 
be brought as an unrighteous man to the grace that justifies, 
but that he may use it lawfully, now that he is righteous ? 
Or does not the case perhaps stand thus? Perhaps, did I say ? 
should I not rather say, certainly stand thus ?—The man who 
is become righteous thus lawfully uses the law, when he ap- 
plies it to alarm the unrighteous, so that whenever the disease 
of some unusual desire begins in them, too, to be augmented 
by the incentive of the law's prohibition and an increased 
amount of transgression, they may in faith flee for refuge to 
the grace that justifies, and becoming delighted with the sweet 
pleasures of holiness, may escape the penalty of the law's 
menacing letter through the spirit's soothing gift. In this 
way the two statements will not be contrary, nor will they 
be repugnant to each other: even the righteous man may 
lawfully use a good law, and yet the law be not made for the 
righteous man; for it is not by the law that he becomes 
righteous, but by the law of faith, which led him to believe 


1 Rom. xi. 6. ? Matt. v. 17. 3 John 1. 14. 
* Rom. iii. 23. 5 Rom. iii. 24. 





CHAP. XVIII. | TO BE “ EXCLUDED "— WHAT ? 173 





that no other resource was possible to his weakness for ful- 
filling the precepts of the law of human conduct, than being 
assisted by the grace of God. 


Cuap. 17.—Concerning the ‘‘ exclusores," or workers in silver. 


Accordingly he says, “ Where is boasting then? It is 
excluded. By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law 
of faith"! He must either mean, that boasting is laudable, 
when it is in the Lord; and that it is excluded, not in the 
sense of shut out and driven away, but of standing out 
prominently as when carved. Whence certain artificers in 
silver are called “ exclusores.” In this sense occurs that pas- 
sage in the Psalms: “That they may be excluded, who have 
been proved with silver,”*—that is, that they may stand out 
in prominence, who have been tried by the word [or oracle] of 
God. So in another passage it is said: “ The words [or 
oracles] of the Lord are pure words, as silver which is tried in 
the fire"? Or if this be not his meaning, he must have wished 
to mention that vicious boasting which comes of pride—that is, 
the glorying of those persons who, appearing to themselves to 
lead righteous lives, boast of their excellence, just as if they 
had not received it,—and further to inform us, that by the 
law of faith, not by the law of works, this boasting was ex- 
cluded, in the other sense of shut out and driven away ; be- 
cause by the law of faith every one learns that whatever good 
life he leads he has from the grace of God, and that from no 
other source whatever can he obtain the means of fulfilling 
his course in the love of righteousness. 

Cuap. 18. [xr.]-—Piety is wisdom; the sacrifice of the New Testament ; the 


apostle a vigorous defender of grace; that is called the righteousness of 
God, which He produces. 


Now, meditating upon this makes a man godly, and this 
godliness is true wisdom. By godliness I mean that which the 
Greeks designate 60eocéBeua,—that very virtue which is com- 
mended to man in the passage of Job, where it is said to him, 
“ Behold, godliness is wisdom."* Now if the word 6eooéBeu 
be interpreted according to its derivation, it might be called 


1 Rom. iii. 27. ? Ps. Ixviii. 30 (Septuagint). 
® Ps. xii. 6. * Job xxviii. 28. 


174 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XVIII. 





“the worship of God ;"'* and in this worship the essential point 
is, that the soul be not ungrateful to Him. Whence it is that 
in the most true and excellent sacrifice [of the gospel] we are 
admonished to “give thanks unto our Lord God.”* Ungrate- 
ful, however, our soul would be, were it to attribute to itself 
that which it has received from God, especially its righteous- 
ness, with the works of which (the especial property, as it were, 
of itself, and produced, so to speak, by the soul itself for itself) 
itis not puffed up in a vulgar pride, as if they were the result 
of riches, or of beauty of limb, or of eloquence, or of those 
other accomplishments, external or internal, bodily or mental, 
which even wicked men are in the habit of possessing, although 
it is, if I may say so, proud of them in a wise complacency, 
as of things which constitute in an especial manner the good 
works of the good. It is owing to this sin of vulgar pride that 
even some great men have drifted from the sure anchorage of 
the divine nature, and have floated down into the dishonours 
of idolatry. Whence the apostle again in the same epistle, 
wherein he so firmly maintains the principle of grace, after 
saying that he was a debtor both to the Greeks and to the 
Barbarians, to the wise and to the unwise, and professing him- 
self ready, so far as to him pertained, to preach the gospel 
even to those who lived in Rome, adds: “I am not ashamed 
of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salva- 
tion to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to 
the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed 
from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by 
faith." "This is the righteousness of God, which was veiled 
in the Old Testament, and is revealed in the New. It is 
called the righteousness of God, because by His bestowal of it 
He makes us righteous. In like manner we read that “ salva- 
tion is the Lord’s,’* because He saves by it. And this is the 
faith “from which” and “to which” it is revealed,—even 
from the faith of them who preach it, to the faith of those 
who obey it. By this faith of Jesus Christ—I mean the faith 
which Christ has given to us—we believe it is from God that 


1 Cultus Dei is Augustine’s Latin expression for the synonym. 
? One of the suffrages of the Sursum Corda in the Communion Service. 
? Rom. i. 14-17. * Pa, Hi. 8. 


CHAP. XIX.]] GOD KNOWN THROUGH THE CREATION. E vir 
we now have, and shall have more and more, the ability of 
living righteously ; wherefore we give Him thanks with that 
dutiful reverence with which He only is to be worshipped. 





Cuap. 19. [xir.]— he knowledge of God through the creation. 


And then the apostle very properly turns from this point 
to describe with detestation those men who, light-minded and 
puffed up by the sin which I have mentioned in the preceding 
chapter, have been carried away of their own conceit, as it 
were, through the empty space where they could find no 
resting-place, only to fall shattered to pieces against the vain 
figments of their idols, as against the stones. For, after he 
had commended the piety of that faith, whereby, being justified, 
we must needs be pleasing to God, he proceeds to call our 
attention to what we ought to abominate as the opposite. 
* For the wrath of God," says he, *is revealed from heaven 
against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold 
the truth in unrighteousness ; because that which may be 
known of God is manifest in them: for God hath showed it 
unto them. For the invisible things of Him are clearly seen 
from the creation of the world, being understood through the 
things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead ; 
so that they are without excuse: because, knowing God, they 
yet glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but 
became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was 
darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools ; 
and they changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an 
image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and to four- 
footed beasts, and to creeping things." ! Observe, he does not 
say that they were ignorant of the truth, but that they held 
the truth in unrighteousness. It struck him, indeed, that he ' 
would inquire whence the knowledge of the truth might be 
obtained by those to whom God had not given the law; and 
he was not silent on the source of their information: for he 
declares that it was through the visible works of creation that 
they arrived at the knowledge of the invisible attributes of 
the Creator. And, in very deed, as they continued to possess 
great faculties of investigation, so in these they had the means 

! Rom. i. 18-23. 


176 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XX. 





of discovering the truth. Wherein then lay their unrighteous- 
ness? In the fact that, when they had found out God, they 
glorified Him not as God, nor gave Him thanks, but became 
vain in their imaginations. Vanity is a disease which espe- 
cially characterizes those persons who mislead themselves, 
and “think themselves to be something, when they are 
nothing.”* Such men, indeed, darken themselves in that 
swelling pride, the foot of which the Psalmist prays that it 
may not come against him,” after saying, “In Thy light shall 
we see light;"? and from the very light of unchanging truth 
they turn aside, and “their foolish heart is darkened.”* For 
theirs was not a wise heart, even though they had found out 
God; but it was foolish, because they did not glorify Him as 
God, or give Him thanks; for “He said unto man, Behold, 
the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom."? So by this conduct, 
while * professing themselves to be wise" (which can only be 
understood to mean that they attributed this quality absolutely 
to themselves), * they became fools.” ° 


Cuap. 20.— The law without grace. 


Now why need I speak of what follows? Those men, 
indeed, by this their impiety— I mean those who might have 
known the Creator through the creature—fell irretrievably ; 
and where they fell, there (since “ God resisteth the proud "?) 
they sank into the very depths of ruin. All this is better 
shown in the sequel of this epistle than we can here mention. 
For in this letter of mine we have not undertaken to expound 
this epistle [to the Romans], but only to demonstrate, so far 
as we are able (relying mainly on its authority), that we are 
assisted by divine aid towards the achievement of righteous- 
ness,—not by the circumstance that God has given us a law 
full of good and holy precepts, but because our very will, 
without which we cannot do any good thing, is assisted and 
elevated by the Spirit of grace being imparted to us, without 
whose help the teaching [of the law] is nothing more than 
“the letter that killeth,"? forasmuch as it holds them guilty 

eal vL 8$ UPS xxxvi 1l. ^I SEX d 


4 Rom. i. 21. 5 Job xxviii. 28. € Rom. i. 22. 
7 Jas. iv. 6. $ 2 Cor, iH. 6, 


CHAP. XXI.] WORKS AND FAITH. 177 





of transgressing it, instead of justifying the ungodly. Now 
just as those discoverers of the Creator by the creature received 
no benefit towards salvation, even from their discovery,— 
because “though they knew God, they glorified Him not as 
God, nor gave Him thanks, while professing themselves to be 
wise,’ '—so also they who discover from the law how man 
ought to live, are not made righteous by their discovery, 
because, “going about to establish their own righteousness, 
they have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of 
God.” ? 
Crap. 21. [x111.}-—-The law of works and the law of faith. 

The law, then, of human action, that is, the law of works, 
whereby this self-clorification is not excluded, and the law of 
faith, by which it is excluded, differ from each other ; and this 
difference it is worth our while to consider, if so be we are 
able to observe and discern it. Cursorily, indeed, one might 
say that the law of works lay in Judaism, and the law of 
faith in Christianity ; forasmuch as circumcision and the 
other works prescribed by the law are just those which the 
Christian system no longer retains. But there is a fallacy in 
this distinction, the greatness of which I have for some time 
been endeavouring to expose; and to such as are shrewd in 
appreciating distinctions, especially to yourself and those who 
share in your intelligence, I have possibly succeeded in my 
effort. Since, however, the subject is an important one, it 
will not be unsuitable, if with a view to its illustration, we 
linger over the many testimonies which again and again meet 
our view. Now, although the apostle says that by the law 
no man is justified? and declares that it entered that the 
offence might abound,* yet in order to save it from the asper- 
sions of the ignorant and the accusations of the impious, he 
defends this very law in words such as these: “ What shall 
we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had 
not known sin but by the law: for I had not known con- 
cupiscence, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. 
But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in 
me all manner of concupiscence." 5 He says also: “The law 

! Rom i. 21. ? Rom. x. 3. 3 Rom. iii. 20. 


4 Rom. v. 20. > Rom. vii. 7, 8. 
4 M 


178 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XXI. 





indeed is holy, and the commandment is holy, and just, and 
good; but sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me 
by that which is good." It is therefore the very letter that 
kills, which says, “Thou shalt not covet.” ^ And of this law 
it is that he speaks in a passage which I have before referred 
to: “By the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the 
righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being 
witnessed by the law and the prophets ; even the righteous- 
ness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ upon all them 
that believe ; for there is no difference: seeing that all have 
sinned, and come short of the glory of God: being justified 
freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ 
Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through 
faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remis- 
sion of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God ; to 
declare, [I say,] His righteousness at this time; that so He 
might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in 
Jesus"? And then he adds the passage which is now under 
consideration : “ Where, then, is your boasting? It is excluded. 
By what law? of works? Nay; but by the law of faith.” ° 
And so it is the very law of works itself which says, * Thou 
shalt not covet ;’ because thereby comes the knowledge of sin. 
Now I wish to know, if anybody will have the courage to 
inform me, whether the law of faith says to us, “ Thou shalt not 
covet,” or not? For if it does not say so to us, what reason 
is there why we, who are placed under its sanction, should not 
sin in safety and with impunity ? Indeed, this is just what 
those people thought the apostle meant, of whom he writes : 
* Even as some affirm that we say, Let us do evil, that good: 
may come; whose damnation is just.”* If, on the contrary, 
it does say to us, * Thou shalt not covet" (even as numerous 
passages in the gospels and epistles’ so often testify and 
urge), then why is not this law also called the law of works ? 
For it by no means follows that, because it retains not in 
its service the operations of the ancient sacraments,—even 
circumcision and the other ceremonies,—it therefore has no 
external duties? comprised in its own sacraments, which are 


! Rom. vii. 12, 18. ? Rom. iii. 20-26. 3 Rom. iii. 27. 
* Rom. iii. 8. 5 Apostolica. 6 Opera. 





CHAP. XXIL]  DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FAITH AND WORKS. 179 





well adapted to the present age ; at least there was a question 
about sacramental works, since the law was mentioned, because 
by it is the knowledge of sin, and so nobody is justified by it; 
therefore it is not by it that boasting is excluded, but by the 
law of faith, whereby the just man lives. But is there not 
by it too the knowledge of sin, when even it says, * Thou 
shalt not covet ?" 
CHAP. 22.— The law of works ; the law of faith ; Paul the most persevering 
preacher of grace ; the ** child of faith.” 

What the difference between them is, I will briefly explain. . 
What the law of works enjoins by menace, that the law of 
faith secures by faith. The one says, “ Thou shalt not covet ;"! 
the other uses such language as this: “ When f perceived that 
nobody could have the gift of continence, unless God gave it 
to him ; and that this was the very point of wisdom: to 
know whose gift it was, I approached unto the Lord, and I 
besought Him."? This indeed is the very wisdom which is 
called piety, in which is worshipped “the Father of lights, 
from whom descends every good and perfect gift"? This 
worship, however, consists in the sacrifice of praise and giving 
of thanks, so that the worshipper of God glories not in him- 
self, but in Him.* Accordingly, by the law of works, God 
says to us, Do what I command thee; but by the law of 
faith we say to God, Give me what Thou commandest. Now 
this is the reason why the law gives its command, even to 


admonish us what faith ought to do,—in other words, that he | 


to whom the command is given, if he 1s as yet unable to per- 
form it, may know what he should ask for; but if he has at 
once the ability, and complies with the command, he ought 
also to be aware from whose gift the ability comes. “ We 
have received not the spirit of this world, but the Spirit which 
is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given 
to us of God"? What, however, “is the spirit of this world,” 
but the spirit of pride? By it their foolish heart is darkened, 
who, after knowing God, glorified Him not as God, by giving 
Him thanks Moreover, it is really by this same spirit that 
they too are deceived, who, while ignorant of the righteousness 


1Ex. xx. l7. _ 2 Wisdom viii. 21. 3 Jas. i. 17. 
PO GOL X; 1. 5 1 Cor. ii. 12. 6 Rom. i. 21. 


180 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.  [CHAP. XXIII. 





of God, and wishing to establish their own righteousness, have 
not submitted to God's righteousness.’ It appears to me, there- 
fore, that he is much more * a child of faith " who has learned 
from what source to expect assistance, than he who attributes 
to himself whatever he has; although, no doubt, to both of 
these must be preferred the man who possesses the gift, and - 
at the same time knows from whom he has it. Suppose, how- 
ever, that he does not believe himself to be what he has not 
yet attained to, let him not in such a case fall into the mistake 
of the Pharisee, who, while thanking God for what he possessed, 
failed to ask for any further gift, just as if he stood in want of 
nothing for the increase and perfection of his righteousness.’ 
Now, having duly considered and weighed all these circum- 
stances and testimonies, we conclude that a man is not justified 
\ by the precepts of a holy life, but by faith in Jesus Christ, —in 
à word, not by the law of works, but by the law of faith; not 
by the letter, but by the spirit; not by meritorious conduct, 
but by free grace. 
Cuap. 23. [xiv.]—H ow the Decalogue kills, if grace be not present. 

The apostle undoubtedly reproves and corrects those who 
were prevailed on to accept circumcision, in such terms as to 
designate by the word “daw” this rite of circumcision and 
other similar legal observances, which are now rejected as 
shadows of a future substance by Christians who yet hold 
what those shadows figuratively promised ; although he at the 
same time would have it to be clearly understood that the law, 
by which he says no man is justified, lies not merely in those 
sacramental institutions which contained promissive figures, 
but also in those works which made the man who did them 
to live holily, and amongst which occurs this prohibition: 
“Thou shalt not covet.” Now, to make our statement all the 
clearer, let us look at the Decalogue itself. Itis certain, then, 
that Moses on the mount received the law, that he might 
deliver it to the people, written on tables of stone by the 
finger of God. It is summed up in ten commandments, in 
which there is no precept about circumcision, nor anything 
concerning those animal sacrifices which have ceased to be 
offered by Christians. Well, now, I should like to be told 


1 Rom. x. 3. 2 Luke xviii. 11, 12. 





CHAP. XXIV.] THE DECALOGUE ITSELF THE “ LETTER." 181 





. what there is in these ten commandments, except that on the 
observance of the Sabbath, which ought not to be kept by a 
Christian,—whether it prohibit the making and worshipping of 
idols and of any other gods than the one true God, or the tak- 
ing of God's name in vain; or prescribe honour to parents; or 
give warning against fornication, murder, theft, false witness, 
adultery, and coveting other men's property ? Which of these 
commandments would any one say that the Christian ought 
not to keep? Or willit by any chance be contended that it 
is not the law which was written on those two tables that 
the apostle describes as “the letter that killeth” but the 
law of circumcision and the other sacred rites which are now 
abolished ? But then how can we think so, when in the law 
occurs this precept, * Thou shalt not covet,’ by which very 
commandment, notwithstanding its being holy, just, and good, 
“sin,” says the apostle, “deceived me, and by it slew me ?"! 
What else can this be than “ the letter” that * killeth ?" 


Cuap. 24. 

In the passage where he speaks to the Corinthians about the 
letter that kills, and the spirit that gives life, he expresses 
himself more clearly, but he does not mean even there any 
other “letter” to be understood than the Decalogue. itself, 
which was written on the two tables. His words are these: 
* Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of 
Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the 
Spirit of the living God ; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy 
tables of the heart. And such trust have we through Christ to 
God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think 
anything as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God; who 
hath made us able ministers of the new testament ; not of 
the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the 
spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written 
and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of 
Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the 
glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away ; 
how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious ? 
For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more 


1See Rom. vii. 7-12. 


182 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. Xxv. 





shall the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory"! A 
good deal might be said about these words; but perhaps we 
shall have a more fitting opportunity at some future time. At 
present, however, I beg you to observe how he speaks of the 
letter that killeth, and contrasts therewith the spirit that 
giveth life. Now this must certainly be the same as “the 
ministration of death written and engraven in stones," and as 
“the ministration of condemnation,” since the law entered 
that sin might abound? But the commandments themselves 
are so useful and salutary to the doer of them, that unless 
they were kept by him, he could not possibly have life. 
Well, then, is it owing to the one precept about the Sabbath- 
day, which is included amongst them, that the Decalogue is 
called “the letter that killeth ?" ^ Because, forsooth, every 
man that still observes that commandment in its literal ap- 
pointment is earnally wise, but to be carnally wise is nothing 
. else than death ? And must the other nine commandments, 
when rightly observed just in their literal shape also, not be 
regarded as belonging to the law of works by which none is 
justified, but to the law of faith whereby the just man lives ? 
Who can possibly entertain so absurd an opinion as to sup- 
pose that * the ministration of death, written and engraven 
in stones,” is not said equally of all the ten commandments, 
but only of the solitary one touching the Sabbath-day ? In 
which class do we place that which is thus spoken of: * The 
law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no trans- 
gression ?"* and again thus: “ Until the law sin was in the 
world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law?” and 
also that which we have already so often quoted: * By the 
law is the knowledge of sin ?"? and especially the passage 
in which the apostle has more clearly expressed the question 
of. which we are treating: * I had not known lust, except the 
Jaw had said, Thou shalt not covet 2"$ 


CnAr. 25. 
Now carefully consider this entire passage, and see whether 
it says anything about circumcision, or the Sabbath, or any- 


1 2 Cor. iii. 3-9. ? Rom. v. 20. 3 Rom. iv. 15. 
1 Rom. v. 18. 5 Rom. iii. 29. 6 Rom. vii. 7. 


CHAP. XXV.] THE “LETTER” CANNOT GIVE LIFE. 183 





thing else pertaining to a foreshadowing sacrament. Does not 
its whole scope amount to this, that the letter which forbids 
sin fails to give man life, but rather ^ killeth," by increasing 
concupiscence, and aggravating our sinfulness by transgression, 
unless indeed grace liberates us by the law of faith, which is 
in Christ Jesus, when His love is “shed abroad in our hearts 
by the Holy Ghost, which is given to us?”* The apostle 
having at the outset of the passage used these words: “That 
we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness 
of the letter,"? goes on to inquire, * What shall we say then ? 
Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay; I had not known sin, but 
by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had 
said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the 
commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. 
For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive without 
the law once; but when the commandment came, sin revived, 
and I died. And the commandment, which was ordained to life, 
I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the com- 
mandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law 
is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good. Was 
then that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. 
But sin, that it might appear sin, worked death in me by that 
which is good ; that sin by the commandment might become 
exceeding sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual; 
whereas Í am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I 
allow not: for what I would, that I do not; but what I hate, 
that I do. If then I do that which I would not, I consent 
unto the law that itis good. But then itis no longer I that do 
it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that 
is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing. To will, indeed, is 
present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find 
not. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which 
I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that which I would not, 
it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find 
then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with 
me. For I delight im the law of God after the inward man : 
but I see another law in my members warring against the law 
of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin 
1 Rom. v. 5 2 Rom. vii. 6. 


184 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XXVII. 





which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who 
shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I 
myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of 
gin"! 


Cua». 26.—The commandment is not kept, if the sole motive of its observance 
be the fear of punishment. 


It is evident, then, that the oldness of the letter, in the 
absence of the newness of the spirit, instead of freeing us 
from sin, rather makes us guilty by the knowledge of sin. 
Whence it is written in another part of Scripture, * He that 
increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow,’ ^— not that the law 
\is itself evil, but because the commandment has its good in 
‘the demonstration of the letter, not in the assistance of the 
spirit; and if this commandment is kept from the fear of 
punishment and not from the love of righteousness, there is 
only servility and not freedom in such observance, and there- 
fore it is in truth not kept at all For no fruit is good which 
| does not grow from the root of love. If, however, that faith 
be present which worketh by love,’ then one begins to delight 
in the law of God after the inward man,* and this delight is 
the gift of the spirit, not of the letter; [moreover, this joyous 
feeling, thus begun, continues] even though there is another 
law in our members still warring against the law of the mind, 
until the old state is changed and passes into that new | 
condition which increases from day to day in the inward man, 
whilst the grace of God liberates us from the body of this 
death through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

CuaP. 27. [xv.]— The grace which was latent in the Old Testament is revealed 
in the New ; what the observation of the Sabbath signified. 

This grace lay hid under a veil in the Old Testament, but 
it has been revealed in the New Testament according to the 
most perfectly ordered dispensation of the ages, forasmuch as 
God knew how to appoint all things in their several places. 
And perhaps it is in reference to this very secret ordinance of 
God, that in the Decalogue, which was given on Mount Sinai, 
the portion which relates to the Sabbath was simply hidden 
under a prefiguring precept. The Sabbath is a day set apart 

! Rom. vii. 7-25. 3 Eccles. i. 18. 3 Gal. v. 6. * Rom. vii. 22. 


CHAP. XXVIII] THE HOLY SPIRIT THE FINGER OF GOD. 185. 





for holy purposes; and it is not without significance that, 
among all the works which God accomplished, the first sound 
of sanctification or holiness was heard on the day when He 
rested from all His labours. On this, indeed, we must not 
now enlarge. But at the same time I deem it to be not 
. inapplicable to the point now in question, that it was not for 
nothing that the nation was commanded on that day to abstain 
from all servile work, by which-sin is signified; [the precept so 
ran] only because not to commit sin belongs to sanctification, 
that is, to God’s gift through the Holy Spirit. Now this 
precept in the law, which was written on the two tables of 
stone, was placed among the others only in a prefiguring 
Shadow, under which the Jews observe their Sabbath-day, 
that by this very circumstance it might be signified that it 
was then the time for hiding and concealing the grace, which 
had to be revealed and discovered in the New Testament by 
the death of Christ,—the rending, as it were, of the veil! “ For 
when,” says the apostle, “it shall turn to the Lord, the veil 
shall be taken away." 
Cur. 28. [xvr.]— TÀe Holy Ghost, why called the finger of God. 

* Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the 
Lord is, there is liberty.”* Now this Spirit of God by whose 
gift we are justified, whence it comes to pass that we rejoice, 
in that we sin not,—a state of liberty; even as, when we are 
without this Spirit, it delights us to sin,—a condition of 
slavery, from the works of which it is incumbent on us to 
abstain ;—this Holy Spirit, [I say,] through whom love is shed 
abroad in our hearts, which is the fulfilment of the law, is 
designated in the gospel as “ the finger of God.”* Is it not 
because those very tables of the law were written by the 
finger of God, that the Spirit of God by whom we are sanctified 
is also the finger of God, in order that, living by faith, we may 
do good works through love? Who is not touched by the 
congruity [of the idea,] and at the same time not regardless of 
the diversity implied therein? For as fifty days are reckoned 
from the celebration of the Passover (which was ordered by 
Moses to be offered by slaying the typical lamb,’ to signify, 


1 Matt. xxvii. 51. 2 9 Cor. iii. 16. 3 9 Cor. iii. 17. 
* Luke xi. 20. 5 Ex. xi.9. ! 


186 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.  [CHAP. XXX. 





indeed, the future death of the Lord) to the day when Moses 
received the law written on the tables of stone by the finger 
- of God, so, in like manner, from the death and resurrection of 
Him who was led as a lamb to the slaughter? there were fifty 
complete days up to the time when the finger of God—that is, 
the Holy Spirit—gathered together in one? perfect company 
those who believed [in the Lord Jesus Christ.] 

Cuap. 29. [xvi1. ]—4 comparison of the law of Moses and of the new law. 

Now, amidst this admirable correspondence, there is at least 
this very considerable diversity in the cases, in that the people 
in the earlier instance were deterred by a horrible dread from 
approaching the place where the law was given; whereas in 
the other case the Holy Ghost came upon them who were 
gathered together in expectation of His promised gift. There 
it was on tables of stone that the finger of God operated ; here 
‘it was on the hearts of men. There it was outwardly that the 
law was registered, so that the unrighteous were terrified by 
it;* here it was inwardly given, so that we might be justified 
m it “For this, Thou shalt not commit Gio Thou 
shalt not kill, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other 
commandment,"—such, of course, as was written on those tables, 
—- jt is briefly comprehended,” says he, ^ in this saying, namely, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no 
ill to his neighbour : therefore love is the fulfilling of the law." 
Now this was not written on the tables of stone, but *is shed 
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto 
us."^ God's law, therefore, is love. “To it the carnal mind 
is not subject, neither indeed can be"? When, however, the 
works of love are written on tables to alarm the carnal mind, 
there arises the law of works and “the letter which killeth " 
the transgressor; but when love itself is shed abroad in the 
hearts of believers, then we have the law of faith, and the 
spirit which gives life to him that loves. 


Cuar. 30. 


Now, observe how consonant this diversity is with those 
words of the apostle which I quoted not long ago in another 


1 Ex, xxxi. 18. 3 Isa. liii. 7. 3 Acts ii. 9. 4 Ex. xix. 12, 16. 
5 Acts ii. 1-47. 6 Rom. xiii. 9, 10. 7 Rom. v. 5. 8 Rom. viii. 7. 


CHAP. XXXL] THE “LETTER” CANNOT JUSTIFY. 187 





connection, and which I postponed for a more careful con- 
sideration afterwards: “Forasmuch,” says he,.“as ye are 
manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by 
us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; 
not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart"! 
See how he shows that the one is written externally to man, 
that it may alarm him from without; the other within man 
himself, that it may justify him from within. He speaks of 
the “fleshy tables of the heart,” not of the carnal mind, but 
of a living agent possessing sensation, in comparison with a 
stone, which is senseless. The assertion which he subsequently 
makes,—that * the children of Israel could not look stedfastly 
into the face of Moses,” and that he accordingly spoke to 
them through a veil,’—sienifies that the letter of the law 
justifies no man, but that rather a veil overspreads the mind 
in reading the Old Testament, until it turns to Christ, and the 
veil is removed ;—in other words, until the mind resorts to 
erace, and understands that from Him accrues to us the 
justification, whereby we do what He commands; and His 
commandment He gives us, in order that while failing in our- 
selves, we may flee to Him for refuge. Accordingly, after 
most guardedly making this admission, “Such trust have we 
through Christ to God-ward,"? the apostle immediately goes 
on to add the statement which underlies our subject, to prevent 
our confidence being attributed to any strength of our own. 
He says: “ Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think 
anything as of ourselves ; but our sufficiency is of God ; who 
also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament ; not 
of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the 
spirit giveth life.” * 


Cuap. 81. [xvim.]— 7e old law ministers death ; the new, righteousness. 


Now, since, as he says in another passage, “the law was 
added because of transgressions,'? meaning the law which is 
written externally to man, he therefore designates it both as 
“the ministration of death," * and “the ministration of con- 
demnation ;”7 but the other, that is, the law of the New 


12 Cor. iii. 3. ? 2 Cor. iii. 13. 3 2 Cor. iii. 4. 4 2 Cor. iii. 5, 6. 
5 Gal. iii. 19. 6 2 Cor. iii. 7. 7 2 Cor. iii. 9. 


^ 


188 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XXXI. 





Testament, he calls “the ministration of the spirit"! and 
*the ministration of righteousness;"? because through the 
spirit we work righteousness, and are delivered from the con- 
demnation due to transgression. The one, therefore, vanishes 
away; the other abides, for the terrifying schoolmaster will 
be dispensed with, when love has succeeded to fear. Now 
* where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."? This 
ministration, however, is vouchsafed to us, as the apostle 
says, not on account of our deserving, but from His mercy. 
* Seeing then that we have this ministry, as we have received 
mercy, let us faint not; but let us renounce the hidden things 
of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the 
word of God deceitfully.”* By this * craftiness” and “ deceit- 
fulness" he would have us understand the hypocrisy with 
which the proud and arrogant would fain be supposed to be 
righteous. Whence in the psalm, which the apostle cites 
in testimony of this very grace of God, it is said, “ Blessed 
is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin, and in 
whose mouth is no guile"? This is the confession of lowly 
saints, who do not boast to be what they are not. Then, in a 
passage which follows not long after, the apostle writes thus: 
* For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; 
and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who 
commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in 
our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of 
God in the face of Jesus Christ" This is the knowledge of 
His glory, whereby we know that He is the light which 
ilumines our darkness. And I beg you to observe how he 
inculcates this very point: “We have,” says he, “ this treasure 
in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be 
of God, and not of us.”’ Then further on he commends in 
glowing terms this same grace, in the Lord Jesus Christ, until 
he comes to that vestment of the righteousness of faith, 
“clothed with which we cannot be found naked," and whilst 
longing for which “we groan, being burdened” with mortality, 
“earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house 
which is from Heaven,” “that mortality might be swallowed 


12 Cor. iii. 8. ? 2 Cor. iii. 9. 52 Cor ii 14. * 2 Cor. iv. 1, 2. 
* Ps; xrxi. 2. 6 2 Cor. iv. 5, 6. ? 2 Cor. iv. 7. 


CHAP. XXXIIL] PROPHECY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 189 





up of life"! Observe what he then says: * Now He that 
hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath 
given untd us the earnest of the Spirit;'? and by and by he 
thus briefly draws the conclusion of the matter: “That we 
might be made the righteousness of God in Him,” ®—this 
being not the righteousness whereby God is Himself righteous, 
but that whereby we are made righteous by Him. 


Cuap. 32. [x1x.]—The Christian faith touching the assistance of grace. 


Let no Christian then stray from this faith, which alone is 
the Christian one; and, in case any one should feel ashamed 
to say that we become righteous through our own selves, with- 
out the grace of God working in us,—because he sees, when 
such an allegation is made, how unable pious believers are to 
endure it,—let him not resort to any subterfuge on this point, 
by affirming that the reason why we cannot become righteous 
without the operation of God’s grace is this, that He gave the 
law, He instituted its teaching, He commanded its precepts of 
good. No doubt, without His assisting grace, it is “ the letter 
which killeth ;” but when the life-giving spirit is present, the 
law causes that to be loved as written within, which it once 
caused to be feared as written without. 


CHAP. 33.— The prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the New Testament. 

Observe how this is also [declared] in that testimony which 
was given by the prophet on this subject in the most emphatic 
way: * Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will 
consummate a new covenant with the house of Israel, and 
with the house of Judah; not according to the covenant 
which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them 
by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt.  Be- 
cause they continued not in my covenant, I also have rejected 
them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I 
will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the 
Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in 
their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my 
people. And they shall teach no more every man his neigh- 
bour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for 

1 See 2 Cor. v. 1-4. 3.2 Cor. y. 5. 3 2 Cor. v. 21. 


190 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XXXIV. 





they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the 
greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their 
iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”* What say | 
we to this? One nowhere, or hardly anywhere, except in this 
passage of the prophet, finds in the Old Testament Scriptures 
any mention so made of the New Testament as to indicate it 
in so many words. It is no doubt often referred to and fore- 
told as about to be given, but not so plainly as to have 
its very name mentioned. Consider then carefully, what 
difference God has testified as existing between the two 
testaments—the old covenant and the new. 


Cuap. 34.—The law ; grace. 


After saying, “ Not according to the covenant which I 
made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the 
hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt,’ observe the 
addition which He makes: “ Because they continued not in 
my covenant.” He reckons it as their own fault that they did 
not continue in God’s covenant [or testament,] lest the law, 
which they received at that time, should seem to be deserving 
of blame. For it was the very law that Christ “came not to 
destroy, but to fulfil”? Nevertheless, it is not by that law 
that the ungodly are made righteous, but by grace; and this 
change is effected by the life-giving Spirit, without whom the 
letter kill. “For if there had been a law given which 
could have given life, verily righteousness should have been 
by the law. But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, 
that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to 
them that believe,”*—out of which promise, that is, from the 
kindness of God, the law is fulfilled, which, however, without 
the said promise only makes men transgressors, either by the 
actual commission of some sinful deed, if the flame of con- 
cupiscence have greater power than even the restraints of 
fear, or at least by their mere will, if the fear of punishment 
transcend the pleasure of lust. In what he says, ^ The 
Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by 
faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe,” it 
is the benefit of the actual “ conclusion” which is asserted. 

1 Jer. xxxi. 31-34, * Matt, v. 17. 3 Gal. iii. 21, 22. 


CHAP. XXXV.] | THE OLD AND THE NEW LAW. 191 





For to what purposes “hath 4£ concluded, except as it is 
expressed in the next sentence: ^ Defore, indeed, faith came, 
we were kept under the law, shut up [or concluded] for the 
faith which was afterwards revealed ?"! The law was there- 
fore given, in order that grace might be sought; grace was 
given, in order that the law might be fulfilled. Now it was 
not through any fault of its own that the law was not fulfilled, 
but by the fault of the carnal mind; and this fault was to 
be demonstrated by the law, and healed by grace. “ For what 
the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, 
God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and 
for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness 
of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the 
flesh, but after the Spirit"? Accordingly, in the passage which 
we cited from the prophet, he says, “I will consummate a 
new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house 
of Judah"? Now what means J will consummate but I will 
fulfil?  * Not, [he goes on to say,] according to the covenant 
which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them 
by the hand, to bring them out of the land of Egypt."* 


Cuap. 35. [xx.]—The old law ; the new law. 


The one [covenant or testament] was therefore old, because 
the other is new. But whence comes it that one is old 
and the other new, if the same law, which said in the Old 
Testament, “Thou shalt not covet,” is fulfilled by the New 
Testament? “Because,” says the prophet, “they continued 
not in my covenant, I have also rejected them, saith the 
Lord" It is then on account of the hurt done by the old 
man, which was by no means healed by the letter which com- 
manded and threatened, that it is called the old testament [or 
covenant ;] whereas the other is called the new testament [or 
covenant,| because of the newness of the spirit, which heals 
the new man of the fault of the old. Then consider what 
follows, and see in how clear a light the fact is placed, that 
men who have faith are unwilling to trust in themselves: 
“ Because,” says he, “this is the covenant which I will make 


LOSL 1» 23. ? Rom. viii. 3, 4. 3 Jer. xxxi. 31. 
* Jer, Xx si) 92. 5 Ex. xx. 17. 6 Jer, xxxl. 32. 


192 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XXXVI. 





with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, 
I wil put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their 
hearts"! See how similarly the apostle states it in the pas- 
sage we have already quoted: * Not in tables of stone, but in 
fleshy tables of the heart,"? because [written] * not with ink, 
but with the Spirit of the living God"? And I apprehend 
that the apostle in this passage had no other reason for 
mentioning * the New Testament " (* who hath made us able 
ministers of the New Testament ; not of the letter, but of the 
spirit "), than because he had an eye to the words of the 
prophet, when he said, “Not in tables of stone, but in fleshy 
tables of the heart,’ inasmuch as in the prophet it runs: “I 
will write it in their hearts.”* 


Cuap. 86. [xx1.]—The law written in our hearts. 

What then is God’s law written by God Himself in the 
hearts of men, but the very presence of the Holy Spirit, who 
is “the finger of God,” and by whose presence is shed abroad 
in our hearts the love which is the fulfilling of the law,’ and 
the end of the commandment ?? Now the promises of the Old 
Testament are earthly ; and yet (with the exception of the 
sacramental ordinances which were the shadow of things to 
come, such as circumcision, the Sabbath and other obser- 
vances of days, and the ceremonies of certain meats,’ and the 
complicated ritual of sacrifices and sacred things which suited 
“the oldness” of the carnal law and its slavish yoke) it con- 
tains such precepts of righteousness as we are even now taught 
to observe, especially those which were expressly drawn out on 
the two tables without figure or shadow : for instance, “ Thou 
shalt not commit adultery,” “Thou shalt do no murder,” “Thou 
shalt not covet,"? “ and whatsoever other commandment is 
briefly comprehended in the saying, Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself ;’’—nevertheless, as in the said Testa- 
ment earthly and temporal promises are, as I have said, 
recited, and these are goods of this corruptible flesh (although 
they prefigure those heavenly and everlasting blessings which 


1 Jer. xxxi. 33. 2:9 Cor. 115. 3. 3:2° Cor, 11.53. 
4 Jer. xxxi. 33. 5 Rom. xiii. 10. 61 Tim. i. 5. 
7 See Retractations, ii. 37. BsEx xx IOS IPIE 9 Rom. xiii. 9. 


CHAP. XXXVIL] NATURE OF THE PROMISED REWARD. 193 





belong to the New Testament), what is now promised is bless- 
ing for the heart itself, blessing for the mind, blessing of the 
spirit, in other words, a blessing for the understanding to 
appreciate; since it is said, “I will put my law in their 
inward parts, and in their hearts wil I write them,"—by 
which He signified that men would not fear the law which 
alarmed them externally, but would love the very righteous- 
ness of the law which dwelt inwardly in their hearts. 


Cuap. 37. [xxn.]— The eternal reward. 


He then went on to state the reward to ensue: “I will be 
their God, and they shall be my people"? This corresponds 
to the Psalmist's words to God: *It is good for me to hold 
me fast by God"? “I will be,” says God, “their God, and 
they shall be my people.” What is better than this blessing, 
what happier than this happiness,—to live to God, to live on 
God, with whom is the fountain of life, and in whose lght 
we shall see light ?* Of this life the Lord Himself speaks in 
these words: “This is life eternal, that they may know Thee 
the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent,” ” 
—that is, “to know Thee and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast 
sent” as the one very God. For no less than this did [Christ] 
Himself promise to those who love Him: “He that loveth 
me, keepeth my commandments; and he that loveth me 
shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will 
manifest myself unto him,” € in the form, no doubt, of God, - 
wherein He is equal to the Father; not in the form of a 
servant, for in this He will display Himself even to the 
wicked also. Then indeed sball that come to pass which is 
written, “Let the ungodly man be taken away, that he see 
not the glory of the Lord." Then also shall “the wicked 
go into everlasting punishment, and the righteous into life 
eternal"? Now this eternal life, as I have just mentioned, has 
been defined to be, that they may know the one true God.” 
Accordingly John again says: “Beloved, now are we the 
sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: 


1 Jer, xxxi. 33. 2 Jeno xxxi. 835. 3 Ps. Ixxiii. 28. 
4 Ps. xxxvi. 9. 5 John xvii. 3. 6 John xiv. 21. 
7 Isa, xxvi. 10 (Septuagint). 8 Matt. xxv. 40. 9 John xvii. 3. 


4 N 


194 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XXXIX. 





but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like 
Him; for we shall see Him as He is.”* This likeness begins 
even now to be recast in us, while the inward man is being 
renewed from day to day, according to the image of Him that 
created him.’ 


Cuap. 38. [xx11.J—The reformation which is now being effected, compared 
with the perfection of the life to come. 


But what is this change, and how great, in comparison with 
the perfect eminence which is then to be realized? The 
apostle applies an illustration, such as it is, derived from 
well-known facts, to these indescribable subjects, comparing 
the peus of childhood with the age of manhood. “When I was - 
a child,” says he, “I used to speak as a child, to understand 
as a child, to think as a child; but when I became a man, I 
put aside childish things.” ° He then immediately explains 
why he said this in these words: “For now we see through 
a glass, darkly; but then [we shall see] face to face: now I 
B in part; but then shall I know even as also I am 
known.” 4 | 


Cnar. 39. (xxiv. ]— The eternal reward which is specially declared in the 
New Testament, foretold by the prophet. 


Accordingly, in our prophet likewise, whose testimony we 
are dealing with, there is this additional statement, that in 
God is the reward, in Him the end, in Him the perfection of 
happiness, in Him the sum of the happy life eternal For 
after saying, “I will be their God, and they shall be my 
people," he at once adds, * And they shall no more teach every 
man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know 
the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them 
unto the greatest of them." ^ Well, the present is certainly 
the time of the new testament, the promise of which is given 
by the prophet in the words which we have quoted from his 
prophecy. Wherefore then does each man still say even now 
to his neighbour and his brother, * Know the Lord ?' Or is 
it not perhaps meant that this is everywhere said when the 
gospel is preached, and when this is its very proclamation ? 
For on what ground does the apostle call himself “a teacher 


1 1 John iii. 2. (1 12:409]. i, T0. 3 1 Cor. xiii. 11. 
* 1 Cor. xiii. 12. 5 Jer. xxxi. 34. 


CHAP. XL.] WHO ARE THE “ ALL ?" 195 





of the Gentiles"! if it be not that what he himself implies 
in the following passage becomes realized: * How shall they 
call on Him in whom they have not believed ? and how shall 
they believe in Him of whom they have not heard ? and how 
shall they hear without a preacher ?"? Since, then, this 
preaching is now everywhere spreading, in what way is it the 
time of the new testament of which the prophet spoke in 
the words, * And they shall not every man teach his neighbour, 
and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord ; for they 
shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of 
them,"? unless it be that he has included in his prophetic 
forecast the eternal reward of the said new testament, by 
promising us the most blessed contemplation of God Himself? 
Cuap. 40.—How that is to be the reward of all ; the apostle earnestly 
defends grace. 

What then is the import of the * A//, from the least of them 
unto the greatest of them,” but all that belong spiritually to 
the house of Israel and to the house of Judah,—that is, to the 
children of Isaae, to the seed of Abraham ? For such is the 
promise, wherein it was said to him, * In Isaae shall thy seed 
be called ; for they which are the children of the flesh are 
not the children of God: but the children of the promise are 
counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At 
this time will I come, and Sarah shall have a son. And not 
only this; but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even 
by our father Isaac, (for the children being not yet born, 
neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God 
according to election might stand, not of works, but of Him 
that calleth,) it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the 
younger.” * This is the house of Israel, or rather the house of 
Judah, on account of Christ, who came of the tribe of Judah. 
This is the house of the children of promise,—not by reason 
of their own merits, but of the kindness of God. For God 
promises what He Himself performs: He does not Himself 
promise, and another perform ; which course of conduct would 
no longer be giving a promise, but uttering a prophecy. 
Hence it is “not of works, but of Him that calleth," ? 


Iq me d. Y. ? Rom. x. 14. 3 Jer. xxxi. 34. 
4 Rom. ix. 7-12. 5 Rom. ix. 11. 


196 | ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. . [CHAP. XLI. 





lest the result should be their own, not God's; lest the 
reward should be ascribed not to His grace, but to their due ; 
and so grace should be no longer that grace which was so 
earnestly defended and maintained by him who, though the 
least of the apostles, laboured more abundantly than all the 
rest,—not himself indeed, but the grace of God that was with 
him! “They shall all know me,"? He says,—" All,” the 
house of Israel and house of Judah. “ All,” however, “are 
not Israel which are of Israel"? but they only to whom it 
is said in *the psalm concerning the morning aid" * (that is, 
concerning the new refreshing light, meaning that of the new 
testament), “All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and 
fear Him, all ye the seed of Israel"? All the seed, without 
exception, even the entire seed of the promise and of the 
called, but only of those who are the called according to His 
purpose “For whom He did predestinate, them He also 
called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and 
whom He justified, them He also glorified.” ‘ “Therefore it 
is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise 
might be sure to all the seed: not to that only which is of 
the law,"—that is, which comes from the Old Testament into 
the New,—‘ but to that also which is of faith," which was 
indeed prior to the law, even “the faith of Abraham;,"— 
meaning those who copy of Abraham,—‘ who is the father of 
us all; as it is written, I have made thee the father of 
many nations"? Now all these predestinated ones, who are 
also called, and justified, and glorified, shall know God by 
virtue of the new covenant or testament, from the least to 
the greatest of them. 

Cua». 41.— The law written in the heart, and the reward of the eternal contem- 


plation of God, belong to the new covenant ; who among the saints are the 
least and the greatest. 


As then the law of works, which was written on the tables 
of stone, and its recompense, the land of promise, which the 
house of the carnal Israel after their liberation from Egypt 
received, belonged to the old testament, so the law of faith, 


11 -Cor, xv. 9, 10. 2 Jer. xxxi. 34. 3 Rom. ix. 6. 
4 See title of Ps. xxii. (xxi. Sept.) in the Sept. 5 Ps. xxii. 29. 
6 Rom. viii. 28. 7 Rom. viii. 30. . 8 Rom. iv. 16, 17. 


CHAP. XLL] “THE LEAST," * THE GREATEST "—WHO ? 19T 





written on the heart, and its reward, the beatific vision which 
the house of the spiritual Israel, when delivered from the 
present world, shall perceive, belong to the new testament. 
Then shall come to pass the issue which the apostle describes : 
«* Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there 
be tongues,they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it 
shall vanish away,’ !—even that imperfect knowledge of * the 
child”? in which this present life is passed, and which is 
but “in part? and “through a glass,” and “as an enigma.” ° 
Because of this, indeed, “prophecy” is necessary, for still 
to the past succeeds the future; and because of this, too, 
“tongues” are required,—that is, a multiplicity of expressive 
sions,—-since it is by successive signs that a succession of ideas 
is suggested to him who does not as yet contemplate with a 
perfectly purified mind the everlasting light of transparent 
truth. “When that, however, which is perfect is come, then 
that which is in part shall be done away,"* because then 
what appeared to the flesh in assumed flesh shall display 
Itself as It is in Itself to all who love It; then it shall be 
eternal life for us to know the one very God;° then shall we 
be like Him because “we shall then know, even as we are 
known ;”? then “they shall teach no more every man his 
neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the 
Lord; for they shall all know me, from the least of them 
unto the greatest of them, [saith the Lord. |” 8 Now this may 
be understood in several ways: Either, that in that life the 
saints shall differ one from another in glory, as star from star. 
It matters not how the expression runs,—whether (as in the 
passage before us) it be, “From the least of them unto the 
greatest of them,” or the other way, From the greatest unto 
the least. And, in like manner, it matters not even if we 
understand “the least” to mean those who simply believe, 
and “the greatest” those who have been further able to under- 
stand—so far as may be in this world—the light which is 
incorporeal and unchangeable. Or, “the least” may mean 
those who are later in time; whilst by “ the greatest” He may 


11 Cor. xiii. 8. 2 Jb. ver. 11. 3 Jb. ver. 19 [iv alviywari= ‘ darkly”). 
aie COL. xm 10 5 John xvii. 3. 6 1 John 1ii. 2. 
41 Cor, xii. 12. 8 Jer. xxxi. 34. 


198 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XLII. 





have intended to indicate those who were prior in time. For 
they are all to receive the promised vision of God hereafter, 
since it was for us that they foresaw the future which would 
be better than their present, that they without us should not 
arrive at complete perfection." And so the earlier are found 
to be the lesser, because they were less deferred in time; as 
in the case of the gospel “penny a day,” which is given for 
an illustration? This penny they are the first to receive who 
came last into the vineyard. Or, “ the least and the greatest” 
ought perhaps to be taken in some other sense, which at pre- 
sent does not occur to my mind. 


Cnr. 42. [xxv.]— Difference between the old and the new testaments. 


I beg of you, however, carefully to observe, as far as you 
can, the point which I am endeavouring to prove with so much 
effort. When the prophet promised a new covenant [or testa- 
ment], not according to the covenant which had been formerly 
made with Israel ah liberated from Egypt, he said nothing 
about a change in the sacrifices or any sacred ordinances 
although such change was no doubt to follow, as we see in 
fact that it did follow; even as the same prophetic scripture 
testifies in many other passages ; but he simply called attention 
to the point of difference [between the testaments,]—how that 
God would impress His laws on the mind of those who per- 
tained to this covenant, and would write them in their 
hearts ;* and hence the apostle drew his conclusion —* not 
with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables 
of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart ;"* and how that the 
eternal recompense of this righteousness was not the land out 
of which were driven the Amorites and Hittites, and other 
nations who dwelt there? but God Himself, “to whom it is 
good to hold us fast,"? in order that God Himself, who is the 
object of their love, may be the good in God which they love, 
between whom and men nothing but sin produces separation ; 
and it is only by grace that sin is remitted. Accordingly, 
after saying, “For all shall know me, from the least to the 
greatest of them," He instantly added, * For I will forgive 


! Heb. xi. 40. p UM atbos M. 5 Jer, xxxi. 32, 88. 
* 2 Cor. iii. 8. § Josh. xii. 9 Ps. xxii. 05 


* 


CHAP. XLIIL] ^ GENTILES IN RELATION TO LAW. 199 





their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more"! By 
the law of works, then, the Lord says, * Thou shalt not 
covet,? but by the law of faith He says, * Without me ye 
can do nothing ;"? for there the. Lord was treating of good 
works, even the fruit of the vine-branches. It is therefore 
apparent what difference there is between the old covenant 
,and the new,—that in the former the law is written on 
material tables, while in the latter it is engraven on men's 
hearts ; so that what in the one alarms from without, in the 
'other delights from within; and while man in the former be- 
comes a transgressor through the letter that kills, in the other 
he takes to loving through the life-giving spirit. But for all 
that we must avoid saying, that the way in which God assists 
us to work righteousness, and “works in us both to will and 
to do of His good pleasure,'* is by externally addressing to 
our faculties precepts of holiness; for He gives His increase 
internally,’ by shedding love abroad in our hearts by the Holy 
Ghost, which is given to us. 

Cuap. 43. [xxvi.]—A question touching the passage in the apostle about the 


Gentiles who are said to do by nature the law’s commands, which they are 
also said to have written on their hearts. 


Now we must see in what sense it is that the apostle says, 
* For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by 
nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the 
law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the 
law written in their hearts," lest there should seem to be no 
certain difference in the new testament, when the Lord pro- 
mised that He would write His laws in the hearts of His — 
people, inasmuch as the Gentiles indeed have this done for 
them naturally. This question therefore has to be sifted, 
arising as it does as one of no inconsiderable importance. 
For a man may say, If God distinguishes the new testament 
from the old by this circumstance, that in the old He wrote 
His law on tables, but in the new He wrote them on men’s 
hearts, by what are the faithful of the new testament dis- 
criminated from the Gentiles, which have the work of the law 
written on their hearts, whereby they do by nature the things 


1 Jer. xxxi. 34. 2 Ex. xx. 17. 3 John xv. 5. 4 Phil. ii. 18. 
5 1 Cor. iii. 7. 6 Rom. v. 5. 7 Rom. ii. 14, 15. 


200 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. — [CHAP. XLIV. 





of the law,! as if, forsooth, they were better than the ancient 
nation, which received the law on tables, and in advance of the 
new nation, which has that conferred on it by the new testa- 
ment which nature has already bestowed on them ? 


Cua». 44.— The answer is, that the passage must be understood of the faithful 
of the new covenant. 


Perhaps, however, they whom the apostle mentioned as 
having the law written in their hearts were those Gentiles 
who belong to the new testament. | Now we must see 
whence this view arises. First, then, referring to the gospel, 
he says, “It is the power of God unto salvation to every one 
that believeth ; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For 
therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to 
faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." He goes 
on to speak of the ungodly, who by reason of their pride 
profit not by the knowledge of God, since they did not glorify 
Him as God, neither were thankful? He then passes to those 
who think and do the very things which they condemn,— 
having in view, no doubt, the Jews, who made their boast of 
God's law, but as yet not mentioning them expressly by name; 
and then he says, *Indignation and wrath, tribulation and 
anguish, upon every soul a man that doeth evil, of the Jew 
us and also of the Gentile: but glory, honour, and peace, to 
every soul that doeth good; to the Jew first, and also to the 
Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God. For as 
many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without 
law ; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged 
by the law; for not the hearers of the law are just before 
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.”* Who they 
are that are treated of in these words, he goes on to tell us: 
“For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature 
the things contained in the law,”’ and so forth in the passage 
which I have quoted already. Evidently, therefore, no others 
are here signified under the name of Gentiles than those whom 
he had before designated by the name of “ Greek” when he 
said, * To the Jew first, and also to the Greek.”® Since then 
the gospel is “the power of God unto salvation to every one 


lRom.ii 14. ? Rom. i. 16, 17. * Bom. E 3L 
* Rom. ii. 8-13. 5 Rom. ii. 14. 6 Rom. i. 16. 


CHAP. XLV.] JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE, NOT BY WORKS. 201 





that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek 20 aud 
since it is “ indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, 
upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and 
also of the Gentile [or Greek]: but glory, honour, and peace, 
to every man that doeth good; to the Jew first, and also to 
the Gentile [or Greek]; “since, moreover, the Greek is indicated 
by the term “Gentiles” who do by nature the things con- 
tained in the law, and which have the work of the law written 
in their hearts; it follows that such Gentiles belong to the 
gospel as have the law written in their hearts, to whom, on 
their believing, it becomes the power of God unto salvation. 
To what Gentiles, however, would he promise glory, and 
honour, and peace, in their doing good works, if living with- 
out the grace of the gospel? Since there is no respect of 
persons with God, and since it is not the hearers of the law, 
but the doers thereof, that are justified? it follows that any 
man of any nation, whether Jew or Greek, who shall believe, 
will equally have salvation under the gospel. “For there is 
no difference,” as he says afterwards; “for all have sinned, 
and come short of the glory of God : being justified freely by 
His grace.”* How then could he say that any Gentile person, 
who was a doer of the law, was justified without the Saviours 
grace ? 


Cuap. 45.—I¢ is not by their works, but by grace, that the doers of the law are 
justified ; God's saints and God's name hallowed in different senses. 


Now [the apostle] could not mean to contradict himself in 
saying, “ The doers of the law shall be justified,"^ as if their 
justification came through their works, and not through grace, 
when he declares that a man is justified freely by His 
grace without the works of the law,’ intending by the term 
“freely” nothing more than that works do not precede justifi- 
cation. For in another passage he expressly says, *If by 
grace, then is it no more of works ; otherwise grace is no 
longer grace.”’ But the statement that “the doers of the law 
shall be justified "* must be so understood, that we may know 
how unable men are to become doers of the law unless they 

! Rom. i. 16. *Rom.dt 11. — > Rom. ii. 18. 


C Eom, 929-94. V Rom. M. $5. 6 Rom. iii. 24, 28. 
7 Rom. xi. 6. 8 Rom. ii. 18. 


202 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. XLVI. 





be justified, so that justification does not subsequently accrue 
to them as doers of the law, but precedes them in that character. 
For what else does the phrase “ being justified” signify than 
“being made righteous,’—by Him, of course, who justifies the 
ungodly man, that he may become a godly one instead? If 
we were to express a certain fact by saying, The men will 
be liberated, the phrase would of course be understood as 
asserting that the liberation would accrue to those who were 
men already ; but if we were to say, The men will be 
created, we should certainly not be understood as asserting 
that the creation would happen to those who were already in 
existence, but that they became men by the creation itself. 
Tf in like manner it were said, The doers of the law shall be 
honoured, we should only interpret the statement correctly if 
we supposed that the honour was to accrue to those who were 
already doers of the law. When, however, the allegation is, 
* The doers of the law shall be justified," what else does it 
mean than that the just shall be justified ? for of course the 
doers of the law are just persons. And thus it amounts to 
the same thing as if it were said, The doers of the law shall 
be created,—not those who were so already, but that they 
may become such; that the Jews who were hearers of the law 
might hereby understand that they wanted the grace of the 
Justifier, in order to become its doers also. Or else the term 
“They shall be justified” is used in the sense of, They shall 
be deemed, or reckoned as just, as it is predicated of a cer- 
tain man in the Gospel, * He, willing to justify himself,"'— 
meaning that he wished to be thought and accounted just. 
Accordingly, we attach one meaning to the statement, God 
sanctifies His saints, and another to the words, * Hallowed 
[or sanctified] be Thy name ;"? for in the former case we sup- 
pose the words to mean that He makes those to be saints 
who were not saints before, and in the latter, that the prayer 
would have that which is always holy and sanctified in itself 
be also regarded as holy by men,—in a word, be feared with a 
nallowed awe. 


Cuap. 46.—How the passage of the apostle agrees with that of the prophet. 
Since therefore the apostle, when he mentioned that the 
1 Luke x. 29. 2 Matt. vi. 9. 





CHAP. XLVL] PAUL NOT AT VARIANCE WITH JEREMIAH. 203 





Gentiles do by nature the things contained in the law, and 
have the work of the law written in their hearts! intended 
those amongst them to be understood who believed in Christ, 
—since they come to the faith in a different way from the 
Jews, who have the law before faith,—there is no good reason 
why we should endeavour to distinguish them from those to 
whom the Lord by the prophet promises the new covenant, 
telling them that He will write His laws in their hearts, in- 
asmuch as they too, by the grafting which he says had been 
made of the wild olive, actually belong to the self-same olive- 
treej— in other words, to the same people of God. There is 
therefore a good agreement of this passage of the apostle with 
the words of the prophet; so that belonging to the new cove- 
nant or testament means having the law of God not written 
on tables, but on the heart,—in other words, embracing the 
righteousness of the law with one's innermost affection, where 
by that love faith works “Because it is by faith that God justi- 
fies the Gentiles;” and the Scripture foreseeing this, preached 
the gospel before to Abraham, saying, * In thy seed shall all 
nations be blessed,"? that by this grace of the promise the 
wild olive might be grafted into the good olive, and believing 
Gentiles might become children of Abraham, *in Abraham's 
seed, which is Christ,"— following the faith of him who, 
without receiving the law written on tables, and not yet 
possessing even circumcision, “ believed God, and it was 
counted to him for righteousness.” Now it must be some 
such thing as this which the apostle attributed to Gentiles 
of this character,—how that “they have the work of the law 
written in their hearts ;"? like the description which he makes 
to the Corinthians : * [Written] not in tables of stone, but in 
fleshy tables of the heart"? For thus do they become of 
the house of Israel, when their uncircumcision is accounted 
circumcision, by the fact that they exhibit not the righteous- 
ness of the law by the cutting of the flesh, but keep it by the 
charity of the heart. “If;’ says he, “the uncircumcision keep 
the righteousness of the law, shall not his uncircumcision be 


1 Rom. ii. 14, 15. ? Jer. xxxii. 82. 3 Rom. xi. 24. 
5 al. v. 6. 5 Gal. iii. 8; Gen. xxii. 18. 6 Gal. ii. 16. 
T Gen. xv. 6; Rom.iv.2. 9 Rom. ii. 15. 9 2 Cor. iii. 3. 


204 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. —[CHAP. XLVII. 














counted for cireumocision ?"! Now because they are in the 


house of the true Israel, in which is no guile? they become 
partakers of the new covenant or testament, since God puts 
His laws into their mind, and writes them in their hearts 
with His own finger, the Holy Ghost, by whom is shed abroad 
n them the love? which is “the fulfilling of the law."* 


” 


Guar. 47. [xxvir.]— The law “‘ being done by nature” means, done by nature 
as repaired by grace. 


Nor ought it to disturb us that the apostle described them 
as doing that which is contained in the law “by nature,’— 
not by the Spirit of God, not by faith, not by grace; for it is 
the Spirit of grace that does it, in order to restore in us the 
image of God, in which we were naturally created? All sin, 
indeed, is contrary to nature, and it 1s grace that heals it,—in 
relation to which the prayer is offered to God, “ Be merciful 
unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against Thee.” ° 
Therefore it is by nature that men do the things which are 
contained in the law ;" for they who do not, fail to do so by 
reason of their sinful defect. In consequence of this sinful- 
ness, the law of God is erased out of their hearts ; whence it 
follows that, when once the sin is healed, and [the law] is 
written in the heart, the prescriptions of the law are done 
“by nature,’—not that by nature grace is denied, but rather 
by grace nature is repaired. For “by one man sin entered 
into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon 
all men, for that all have sinned 8 wherefore “there is no 
difference: they all come short of the glory of God, being 
justified freely by His grace"? By this grace there is 
written on the renewed inner man that righteousness which 
sin had blotted out; and this mercy comes upon the human 
race through our Lord Jesus Christ. “ For there is one God, 
and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ 
Jesus." ? 

1 Rom. ii. 26. ? See John i. 47. * Rom. v. 5. 4 Rom. xiii. 10. 


5 Gen. i. 27. 6 Ps, xli. 4. 7 Rom. ii. 14. 8 Rom. v. 12. 
9 Rom. iii. 22-24. 191 Tim. ii. 5. 


CHAP. XLVIII.] GOD'S IMAGE RENOVATED. 205 





Cur. 48.— Even if the apostle is understood to speak of unbelieving Gentiles, 
the difference which has been asserted of the new testament is not taken 
away ; the image of God is not wholly blotted out in these unbelievers ; 
venial sins. 


According to some, however, they who do by nature the 
things contained in the law must not be regarded as yet in 
the number of those whom Christ’s grace justifies, but rather 
as among those whose actions (although they are those of 
ungodly men, who do not truly and rightly worship the true 
God) we not only cannot blame, but actually praise, and with 
good reason, and rightly too, since they have been done—so 
far as we read, or know, or hear—according to the rule of 
righteousness ; though at the same time, were we to discuss 
the question with what motive they are done, they would 
hardly be found to be such as deserve the praise and defence 
which are due to righteous conduct.  [xxvur] Still, [in 
estimating these actions, we must not lose sight of the fact] 
that God's image has not been so completely erased in the 
soul of man by the stain of earthly affections, as to have left 
remaining there no merest lineaments of it, whence it might 
be fairly said that man, even in his very ungodliness of life, 
did, or could appreciate, some things contained in the law. 
If, then, this is what is meant by the statement [of the 
apostle,] that “the Gentiles, which have not the law" (that 
is, the law of God), “do by nature the things contained in 
the law,"! and because men of this character “are a law 
to themselves," and *show the work of the law written in 
their hearts,’—that is to say, because what was impressed on 
their hearts when they were created in the image of God has 
not been wholly blotted out,—even in this view of the subject, 
that wide difference will not be disturbed, which separates 
the new covenant or testament from the old, and which lies 
in the fact that by the new covenant the law of God is 
written in the hearts of believers, whereas in the old it was 
inscribed on tables of stone. This writing in the heart, indeed, 
is effected by renovation, although it had not been completely 
blotted out by the old unrenewed nature. For just as the 
very image of God is renewed in the mind of believers by the 


! Rom. ii. 14. 


206 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.  [CHAP. XLVIII. 





new testament, which impiety had not quite abolished (for 
there had remained undoubtedly that faculty which cannot be 
anything else than man's rational soul), so also the law of 
God, which had not been wholly blotted out there by un- 
righteousness, is certainly written thereon, being renewed by 
grace. Now in the Jews the law which was written on tables 
could not effect this new inscription (which in a word is 
justification), but only transgression ; for they too were men, 
and there was inherent in them that power of nature, which 
enables the rational soul both to perceive and do anything 
that pertains to the law. But the godliness which is to transfer 
[the soul] happy and immortal to another life has “a spotless 
law, converting souls,’? so that by the light thereof they 
may be renewed, and that be accomplished in them which 
is written, * There has been manifested over us, O Lord, the 
light of Thy countenance.”” Turned away from which, they 
have deserved to fall into decay, whilst they are incapable 
of renovation except by the grace of Christ,—in other words, 
without the intercession of the Mediator; there being “one 
God, and one Mediator between God and men, the Man 
Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all.” ? Should 
they be strangers to His grace of whom we are treating, and 
who (after the manner of which we have spoken with sufficient 
fulness already) * do by nature the things contained in the 
law,” * of what use will be their “excusing thoughts" to them 
“in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men,"* 
unless it be perhaps to procure for them a milder punishment? 
For as, on the one hand, there are certain venial sins which do 
not hinder the righteous man from the attainment of eternal 
life, and which are unavoidable in this life, so, on the other 
hand, there are some good works which are of no avail to 
an ungodly man towards the attainment of everlasting life, 
although it would be very difficult to find the life of any 
very bad man whatever entirely without them. But inas- 
much as in the kingdom of God the saints differ in glory as 
one star does from another so likewise, in the condemnation 
of everlasting punishment, it will be more tolerable for Sodom 


te ae OY 3 Ps. iv. 6. 31 Tim. ii. 5, 6. 
* Rom. ii. 14. * Bom. 3L. 15, 18. 61 Cor. xv. 41. 


CHAP. XLIX.] GRACE THE SUBJECT OF PROMISE. 207 





than for that other city ;* whilst some men will be twofold 


more the children of hell than others? Thus in the judgment 
of God not even this fact will be without its influence,—that 
one man will have sinned more, or sinned less, than another, 
even when both are involved in the condemnation of the same 
ungodliness. 
Cuap. 49.— The grace promised by the prophet for the new covenant. 

What indeed could the apostle have meant to imply by 
the fact that, after checking the boasting of the Jews, by 
telling them that “not the hearers of the law are just before 
God, but the doers of the law shall be justified"? he imme- 
diately afterwards speaks of them “which, having not the law, 
do by nature the things contained in the law,"* if in this 
description not they are to be understood who belong to the 
Mediator's grace, but rather they who, while not worshipping 
the true God with true godliness, do yet exhibit some good 
works in the general course of their ungodly lives? Or 
perhaps the apostle deemed it probable (from the very fact 
that he had previously said that “with God there is no 
respect of persons,"? and that he afterwards said that “God 
is not the God of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles " 5) 
that even those scanty little works of the law, which are 
suggested by nature, were only discovered in those, who re- 
ceived not the law, by the remains of the image of God, which 
He does not disdain when they believe in Him, with whom 
there is no respect of persons. But whichever of these views 
is accepted, it is evident that the grace of God was promised 
to the new testament or covenant even by the prophet, and 
that this grace was definitively announced to take this shape, 
— God's laws were to be written in men's hearts; and they 
were to arrive at such a knowledge of God, that men were 
not severally and solitarily to teach their neighbours and 
brothers, saying, Know the Lord; for all were to know Him, 
from the least to the greatest of them.’ This is the gift of 
the Holy Ghost, by which love is shed abroad in our hearts; 
—not, indeed, any love of a vague, indefinite character, but 
God's love, “out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and 


aa Ke 12. * Matt. 3x11, 15, 3 Rom. ii. 13. 4 Rom. ii. 14. 
5 Rom. ii. 11. 6 Rom. iii. 29. 7 Jer. xxxi. 33,34. — 9 Rom. v. 5. 


208 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. L. 





an unfeigned faith,'! by means of which the just man, while 
living in this pilgrim state, is led on, after the stages of “ the 
glass,” and “ the enigma," and *the partial knowledge," to the 
actual vision, that he may see face to face, and know even as 
he is known himself? For one thing has he required of the 
Lord, and that he still seeks after, that he may dwell in the 
house of the Lord all the days of his life, in order to behold 
the fair beauty of the Lord? 


\ 


Cuap. 50. [xxix. ]-—ighteousness is the gift of God. 


Let no man therefore boast of that which he seems to pos- 
sess, as if he had not received it ;* nor let him think that he 
has received it merely because the letter of the law has been 
externally exhibited to him to read, and sounded in his ear 
for him to hear it. For “if righteousness came by the law, 
then Christ died in vain.”® Seeing, however, that He has 
not died in vain, and has ascended up on high, and has led 
captivity captive, and has given gifts to men,’ it follows that 
whosoever possesses gifts, has them from that source. 1f, 
indeed, any man denies that he has received them thus, he 
either does not possess them, or is in great danger of being 
deprived of what he has! “For it is one God which justifies 
the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through 
faith ;’® in which clauses there is no real difference in the 
sense, as if the phrase “ by faith” meant one thing, and “through 
faith" another, but only a variety of expression. For in one 
passage, when speaking of the Gentiles,—that is, of the uncir- 
cumcision,—he says, * The Scripture, foreseeing that God would 
justify the heathen by faith? [ex fide, ée miorews];” again, in 
another, when speaking of the circumcision, to which he him- 
self belonged, he says, “ We who are Jews by nature, and not 
sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified 
by the works of the law, but through faith | per fidem, bua 
niotews] in Jesus Christ, even we believed in Jesus Christ." 
Observe, he says that the uncircumcision are justified by faith, 


Hie (ed ta bus Py Og 5h 21 Cor. xiii. 12. 3 Ps. xxvii. 4. 
41005 1». 5 Gal. ii. 21. 6 Ps. Ixviii. 18; Eph. iv. 8. 
7 Luke viii. 18, xix. 26. 8 Rom. iii. 30. 


9 Gal. iii. 8. 10 Gal. ii. 15, 16. 


CHAP. L.] RIGHTEOUSNESS THE GIFT OF GOD. 209 





and the circumcision through faith, if, indeed, the circumcision 
keep the righteousness of faith. For “thé Gentiles, which 
followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteous- 
ness, even the righteousness which is of [or *by'] faith,’ ! by 
obtaining it of God, not by assuming it of themselves. “ But 
Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, hath not 
attained to the law of righteousness. And why? Because they 
sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the 
law’ *—in other words, working it out as it were by them- 
selves, not believing that it is God who works within them. 
* For it is God which worketh in us both to will and to do of 
His own good pleasure"? And hereby “they stumbled at the 
stumbling-stone.”* For what he asserted about their “not 
seeking [righteousness] by faith, but as it were by the works 
of the law,’ ? he most clearly explained in the following words: 
“They, being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about 
to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted them- 
selves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is the end of 
the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”° Then 
are we still in doubt what are those works of the law by 
which a man is not justified, if he believes them to be his own 
works, as it were, without the help and gift of God, which is 
* by the faith of Jesus Christ ?" Do we suppose that they are 
circumcision and the other like ordinances, because some such 
things in other passages are read concerning these sacramental 
rites? In this place, however, it is certainly not circumcision 
which they wanted to establish as their own righteousness, 
because God established this by prescribing it Himself. Nor 
is it possible for us to understand the statement of those works 
concerning which the Lord says to them, “Ye reject the 
commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition;” ’ 
because, as the apostle says, Israel, which followed after the 
law of righteousness, hath not attained to the law of righteous- 
ness"? He did not say, Which followed after their own 
traditions, framing them and relying on them. This then is 
solely the distinction in their case, that the very precept, 


! Rom. ix..30. ? Rom. ix. 31, 32. 5 Phil. ii. 13. 
i Rom. ix: 32. 5 Rom, ix, 92. 6 Rom. x. 3, 4. 
7 Mark vii. 9. 8 Rom. ix. 31. 


4 oO 


210 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. LI. 





“Thou shalt not covet,” and God's other good and holy com- 
mandments, they attributed to themselves; whereas, that man 
may keep them, God must work in him through faith in Jesus 
Christ, who is “the end of the law for righteousness to every 
one that believeth."? That is to say, every one who is incor- 
porated into Him and made a member of His body, is able, 
by His giving the increase within, to work righteousness. It 
is of such a man’s works that Christ Himself has said, “ With- 
out me ye can do nothing."? 
Cuap. 51. 

. The righteousness of the law is set forth in these terms, 
that whosoever achieves the same shall live init; and the pur- 
pose which such a proposition has in view is, that whenever 
a man has discovered his own weakness, he may by faith con- 
ciliate the grace of the Justifier, and thus, arriving at [the 
righteousness of the law] not by his own strength, nor by the 
letter of the law (which becomes impracticable and unavailing 
to him), may reduce it to action, and live in it. Now the 
work by which a man shall live, if he accomplish it, is only 
effected by one who is justified. His justification, however, is 
obtained by faith; and concerning faith it is written, “Say 
not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven ? (that is, to 
bring down Christ therefrom ;) or, Who shall descend into the 
deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.) But 
what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, 
and in thy heart: that is (says he), the word of faith which we 
preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord 
Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised 
Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.’* As far as he is 
saved, so far is he righteous. For by this faith we believe 
that God will raise even us from the dead,—even now in 
the spirit, that we may in this present world live soberly, 
righteously, and godly in the renewal of His grace; and by 
and by in our flesh, which shall rise again to an undying con- 
dition. This indeed is the gift of the Spirit, who introduces 
this immortality by a resurrection which is suitable in itself, 
—in a word, by our justification. “For we are buried with 
Christ by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised 


1 Ex, xx. 17. 2 Bom. 4. 5 John xy. 5. * Rom. x. 6-9. 


CHAP. LII.] GRACE STRENGTHENS FREE WILL. 211 





up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also 
should walk in newness of life"! By faith, therefore, in Jesus 
Christ we obtain salvation, both so far as it is begun within 
us in reality, and is expected to be accomplished for us here- 
after in hope; *for whosoever shall call on the name of the 
Lord shall be saved." “How abundant,” says the Psalmist, 
“is the multitude of Thy goodness, O Lord, which Thou hast 
laid up for them that fear Thee, and hast perfected for them 
that hope in Thee |"? By the law we fear God; by faith we 
hope in God: but from those who are afraid of punishment 
grace is hidden. Now the soul which labours under this 
fear, from not having conquered its evil concupiscence, and 
from which this fear, like a harsh master, has not departed, 
should flee for refuge to the mercy of God in faith, that He 
may impart to it what He commands, and may, by infusing 
into it the sweetness of His grace through His Holy Spirit, 
cause the soul to take greater delight in what He teaches 
it, than pleasure in what opposes His instruction. In this 
manner it is that the abundance of God's goodness, —that is to 
say, the law of faith,—the love which is impressed and shed 
abroad in men's hearts, is perfected in them that hope in 
Him, that good works may be wrought by the soul, when it 
is healed not by the fear of punishment, but by the love of 
righteousness. | | 
CHap. 52. [xxx.] 

Do we then by grace make void man's freedom of will? 
., God forbid! We rather establish that faculty. For as the 
| law is not weakened or cancelled by faith, neither is free will 
. by grace Indeed, the law is only fulfilled by a free exercise 
of the will; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. By 
‘faith comes the acquisition of grace to resist sin; by grace 
the soul procures healing from the disease of sin; by the 
':health of the soul liberty is given to the will; from this free- 
dom of the will arises the love of righteousness, and from this 
love of holiness proceeds the accomplishment of the law. 
Accordingly, as the law is not made void, but is established 
through faith, since faith procures the grace whereby the 


! Rom. vi. 4. ? Rom. x. 13; Joel ii. 32. 
b Ds xxn 19 ^ Rom. iii. 31. 


212 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. LIII. 





law is fulfilled, so the freedom of the will is not made 
void through grace, but rather is thereby established, inas- 
much as grace gives a healthy condition to a man's desire, 
whereby he is enabled to love righteousness frankly and fully. 
Now all the stages which I have here connected together in 
their suecessive links, have each their proper voices in the 
sacred Scriptures. The law says: “Thou shalt not covet."! 
Faith says: * Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee."? 
Grace says: “ Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest 
a worse thing come unto thee."? The healed condition says: 
“OQ Lord my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed 
me.”* The liberty of the will says: “I will freely sacrifice 
unto Thee"? The love of righteousness says: * Transgressors 
told me pleasant tales, but not according to Thy law, O Lord."* 
How is it then that miserable men dare to be proud, either 
of their free will, before they have liberty, or of their own 
strength, if they have been liberated? [Talk of free will !] 
They do not observe that in the very mention of free will 
there is of course the sound of liberty. But “ where the 
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”” Since, however, they 
are the servants of sin, why do they boast of their free will ? 
“For by what a man is overcome, by the same is he brought 
in bondage"? But if they have been liberated from that 
bondage, why do they vaunt themselves as if it were by their 
own doing? Why boast, as if they had not received [the gift ?] 
Or is their free condition of such sort that they do not choose 
to have Him for their Lord who says to them: “ Without me ye 
can do nothing ;”* and “If the Son shall make you free, ye 
shall be free indeed ?"'? 

Cnuar. 53. [xxx1.]—Is faith in our own power? possessing will; possessing 

power ; how one is said to act against his will. 

Some one will ask whether the faith itself lies in our own 
power, in which seems to be the beginning either of salvation, 
or of that series leading to salvation which I have just men- 
tioned. Now we shall see this question more easily, if we first 
examine with some care what “our own power" means. There 


Mixx, eb * Deoxlisd. 3 John v. 14. tps x02. 
TE dv 0. 9 Ps. exix. 85 (Septuagint). 5 2 Cor. Ay. 
1*2 Pet; 15. 19. 9 John xv. 5. 10 John viii. 96. 


CHAP. LIIL] TO WILL AND TO BE ABLE—WHAT ? 213 





are then two faculties,—the exercise of will and the exercise 
of power,—and not every one that has the will has therefore 
the power also, nor has every one that possesses the power 
got the will in immediate control; for as we sometimes will 
what we cannot do, so also we sometimes can do what we do 
not wil If we turn over! in our examination merely the 
words themselves with sufficient care, we shall detect, in the 
very ring of the terms, the derivation of the wish or will’ from 
the existence of the wishing faculty? and of the ability or 
power* from the fact of our being able? to do this or that. 
Therefore, even as the man who wishes has volition or will, 
so also the man who can do so and so possesses ability or 
power; but in order that a thing may be done with power, the 
will must be present. For no man is usually said to doa 
thing with power or mastery if he did it unwillingly. Al- 
though, at the same time, if we go into the thing accurately, 
even that which a man is forced to do against his will, he 
does, if he really accomplishes the thing, with his will; only 
he is said to be an unwilling agent, or to act against his will 
in that particular thing, because he would prefer doing some 
other thing. He is compelled, indeed, by some unfortunate 
influence, to do what he does under the compulsion, wishing 
all the while to escape it or to remove it out of his way. Now 
if his will be such that he prefers not doing this to not suí- 
fering that, then undoubtedly he resists the compelling influ- 
ence, and does it not. And accordingly, if he does it, it is not 
with a full free will, although at the same time it is not 
without a will that he does it; and inasmuch as the will is 
closely followed by its effect, we cannot say that he lacked 
the power, as he did it. If, indeed, he had the wish to do it, 
yielding to compulsion, but lacked the power, although we 
allowed that a coerced will was present to the agent, we should 
yet say that the power was absent. But when his reason for 
not doing the thing was because he was unwilling, then of 
course the power was present although the will was absent, 
since he did it not, by his resistance to the compelling influ- 
ence. Hence it is that even they who compel, or they who 
persuade, to an action, are accustomed to say, Why don't you 
! Evolutis. ? Voluntas. ? Velle. * Potestas. 5 Posse. 


214 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.  — [CHAP. LIV. 





do what you have it in your power to do, in order to get rid 
of this evil [coercion?] While they who are utterly powerless 
to do what they are compelled to do, on the ground that 
they are supposed to be able, usually answer that question 
by excusing themselves, and say, I would do it if it were 
in my power. What then do we want more, since we call 
that power when to the will is added at once the faculty of 
doing anything ? Accordingly, every one is said to have that 
in his power which he does if he likes, and does not if he 
dislikes it. 

Cuap. 54.— Whether faith be in a man's own power ; faith twofold ; faith in 


our own power, but only when a man believes voluntarily ; all power, but 
not will, is from God. 


Attend now to the point which we have laid down for 
discussion: whether faith be in our own power? We now 
speak of that faith which we employ when we believe any- 
thing, not that which we impart when we make a promise; 
for this [fidelity] also is called faith. We use the word in 
one sense when we say, * He put no faith in me," and in 
another sense when we say, “He did not keep faith with 
me.” The one phrase means, “He did not believe what I 
said ;” the other, * He did not do what he promised.” Accord- 
ing to the faith by which we believe, we are faithful to God ; 
but according to that whereby a thing is realized which is 
promised, God Himself even is faithful to us; for so much 
does the apostle declare, * God is faithful, who will not suffer 
you to be tempted above that ye are able"?! Well, now, this 
is the faith about which we inquire, Whether it be in our 
power ? even the faith by which we believe God, or believe 
in God. For of this it is written, “ Abraham believed God, 
and it was counted unto him for righteousness.”? And again, 
“To him that believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, 
his faith is counted for righteousness.” ® Consider now whether 
anybody believes, if he be unwilling; or whether he believes 
not, if he be desirous to do so. Such a position, indeed, is 
absurd; for what is believing but agreeing to the truth of 
what is asserted ? This consent, however, proves the posses- 
sion of will: faith, therefore, is in our own power. But, as 


PT Cor. x. 19. ? Rom. iv. 3; comp. Gen. xv. 6. 3 Rom. iv. 5. 


CHAP. LV.] ALL POWER, BUT NOT WILL, FROM GOD. : 239 





the apostle says: “There is no power but comes from God,” ! 
what reason then is there why it may not be said to us even 
of that: * What hast thou which thou hast not received ?"? 
for it is God who gave us even to believe. Nowhere, however, 
in Holy Scripture do we find such an assertion as, There is. 
no will or volition but comes. from God. And rightly is it 
not so written, because it is not true. Otherwise God would 
be the Author of sins (which Heaven forbid !), if there were no 
willor volition except what comes from Him; inasmuch as 
a depraved will alone is already a sin, even if the effect be 
wanting,—in other words, if it has not the power of acting. 
But when the depraved will receives power to accomplish its 
intention, this proceeds from the judgment of God, with, whom 
there is no unrighteousness? He indeed infliets His punish- 
ment even after such a manner as this; nor is His chastise- 
ment unjust, because it is secret. The ungodly man, however, 
is not aware that he is being punished, except when he un- 
willingly discovers by a manifest penalty how much evil he 
has willingly committed. This is just what the apostle 
remarks of certain men: “God hath given them up to the 
evil desires of their own hearts, . . . to do those things that 
are not convenient.”* Accordingly, the Lord also said to 
Pilate: “Thou couldest have no power at all against me, 
except it were given thee from above"? But still, when the 
power is given, it does not follow that a necessity is imposed. 
Therefore, although David had acquired a power to kill Saul, 
he preferred sparing to striking him. Whence we understand 
that bad men receive power in their own depraved will for 
condemnation, while good men receive the power of a good 
will to test their piety. 


Cuap. 55. [xxxu1.]— What faith is laudable. 


Since faith, then, is in our power, inasmuch as every one 
believes when he likes; and since, when he believes, he 
willingly believes; our next inquiry, which we must conduct 
with care, is, What faith it, is which the apostle commends 
with so much earnestness? For indiscriminate faith, [or 


1 Rom. xiii. 1. 2 Cor. 19 6. ? Rom. ix. 14. a 
* Rom. i. 24, 28. 5 John xix. 11. 6 1 Sam. xxiv. 7, and xxvi. 9. 


216 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. LVI. 





credulity,] is not a good thing. Accordingly we find this 
caution: “ Brethren, believe not every spirit, but try the 
spirits whether they are of God.”* Nor must the clause in 
commendation of charity, that it “believeth all things,"? be 
so understood as derogating from the charity of any particular 
person, if he refuses at once to believe what he hears. For 
the same charity admonishes us that we ought not readily to 
believe anything evil about a brother; and when anything of 
the kind is said of him, it judges it to be more suitable to its 
own character not to believe the aspersion. Lastly, the same 
charity, ^ which believeth all things," does not believe every 
spirit. Accordingly [this distinction arises:] charity believes 
‘all things, but it believes in God. Observe, it is not said, 
Believes 4» all things. It cannot therefore be doubted that 
the faith which is commended by the apostle is the faith 
whereby we believe in God? 

Cua». 56.—The faith of those who are under the law different from the faith 

of others ; slavish fear ; faith works by love, not by fear. 

But there is yet another distinction to be observed, since 
they who are under the law both attempt to work righteous- 
ness through fear of punishment, and fail to do God's 
righteousness, because this is accomplished solely by the 
charity to which only what is lawful is pleasing, and never 
by the fear which is forced to regard in its work the thing 
which is lawful, although at the same time it has something 
else in its will which would prefer the unlawful object of its 
desire being allowed it, if it were only possible. These 
persons also believe in God ; for if they had no faith in Him 
at all, neither would they of course have any dread of the 
penalty of His law. This, however, is not the faith which 
the apostle commends. He says: “ Ye have not received the 
spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the 
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father"* The 
fear, then, of which we speak is the fear of slaves ; and there- 
fore, even though there be in it a belief in the Lord, yet 
righteousness is not loved by it, but condemnation is feared. 
God's children, however, exclaim, “ Abba, Father,’—-one of 


1 1 John iv. 1. 3 1 Cor, xiii. 7. 
* Rom. iv. 3 (izíersves ra Oty), * Rom. viii. 15. 


CHAP. LVI.] TRUE FAITH. A y a 





which words they of the circumcision utter ; the other, they of 
the uncircumcision,—the Jew first, and then the Greek! There 
is “ one God, which justifieth the circumcision by faith, and the 
uncircumcision through faith"? When indeed they utter this 
call, they want something ; and what do they want, but that 
which they hunger and thirst after ? And what else is this but 
that which is said of them, “ Blessed are they which do hunger 
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled ?"? 
Let, then, those who are under the law pass over to this 
position, and become sons instead of slaves; and yet not so 
as to cease to be servants, but so as, while they are sons, 
still to serve their Lord and Father in a loving and generous 
spirit. For even this great gift have they received ; for the 


. Only-begotten “ gave them power to become the sons of God, 


even to them that believe on His name;"* and He advised 
them to ask, to seek, and to knock, in order to receive, to find, 
and to have the gate opened to them,’ adding by way of 
rebuke, the words: * If ye, being evil, know how to give good 
gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father 
which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him ?"? 
When, therefore, that strength of sin, the law, inflamed the 
sting of death, even sin, to take occasion by the command- 
ment, and work all manner of concupiscence in them; of 
whom were they to ask for the gift of continence, but of Him 
who knows how to give good gifts to His children? Perhaps, 
however, a man, in his folly, is unaware that no one can be 
continent except God give him the gift. To know this, indeed, 
he requires Wisdom herself? Why, then, does the man not 
listen to the Spirit of his Father, speaking through Christ's 
apostle, or even Christ Himself, who says in His gospel, 
“Seek and ye shall find ;"? and who also says to us, speaking 
by His apostle: *If any one of you lack wisdom, let him ask 
of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, 
and it shall be given to him. Let him, however, ask in faith, 
nothing wavering ?"! This is the faith by which the just 
man lives;” this is the faith whereby he believes on Him 


1 Rom. ii. 9. 2 Rom. iii. 30. 3 Matt. v. 6. 4 John i. 12. 
5 See Matt. vii. 7. § Matt. vii. 11. 7 1 Cor. xv. 56. 8 Rom. vi. 8. 
9 Wisd. viii. 21. — !? Matt. vii. 7. 1 Jas, i. 5, 6. 13 Rom. i. 17. 


218 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. LVI. 





who justifies the ungodly ;* this is the faith through which 
boasting is excluded, either by the retirement of that with 
which we become self-inflated, or by the excitement of that 
with which we glory in the Lord. This, again, is the faith by 
which we procure that copious gift of the Spirit, of which it 
is said: “ We indeed through the Spirit wait for the hope of 
righteousness by faith"? But this admits of the further 
question, Whether he meant by “the hope of righteousness " 
that by which righteousness hopes, or that whereby righteous- 
ness is itself hoped for? For the just man, who lives by faith, 
hopes undoubtedly for eternal life; and the faith likewise, 
which hungers and thirsts for righteousness, makes progress 
therein by the renewal of the inward man day by day; and 
hopes to be satiated therewith in that eternal life, where 
shall be realized that which is said by the Psalmist of God: 
* Who satisfieth thy desire with good things"? This, more- 
over, is the faith whereby they are saved to whom it is said: 
* By grace are ye saved through faith ; and that not of your- 
selves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man 
should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ 
Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that 
we should walk in them." 5 This, in short, is the faith which 
works not by fear, but by love;^ not by dreading punishment, 
but by loving righteousness. Whence, therefore, arises this 
love,—that is to say, this charity,—by which faith works, if not 
from the source whence faith itself obtained it? For it would 
not be within us, to what extent soever it is in us, if it were 
not diffused in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to 
us? Now “the love of God” is said to be shed abroad in our 
hearts, not because He loves us, but because He makes us 
lovers of Himself; just as “ the righteousness of God” ? is used 
in the sense of our being made righteous by His gift; and 
“the salvation of the Lord," in that we are saved by Him; 
and “ the faith of Jesus Christ," because He makes us believers 
in Him. This is that righteousness of God, which He not 


! Rom. iv. 5. ? Rom. iii. 27. 3 Gal. v. 5. 
42 Cor. iv. 16. 5 Ps. ciii. 5 (Sept.). 6 Eph. ii. 8-10. 
7 Gal. v. 6. 8 Rom. v. 5. 9 Rom. iii. 21. 


MPs. np 8. HW Gab n. 16. 





CHAP. LVIIL.] WHENCE COMES THE WILL TO BELIEVE ? 219 





only teaches us by the precept of His law, but also bestows 
upon us by the gift of His Spirit. 
Cup. 57. [xxxri. ]— Whence comes the will to believe ? 

But it remains for us briefly to inquire, Whether the will 
with which we believe be itself the gift of God, or whether it 
be the production of that freedom of will which is naturally 
implanted in us? If we say that it is not the gift of God, we 
must then incur the fear of supposing that we have discovered 
some: answer to the apostle's reproachful appeal: * What hast 
thou that thou didst not receive? Now,if thou didst receive it, 
why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it ?"l—even 
-| some such an answer as this: See, we have the will to believe, . 
which we did not receive. See in what we glory,—even in 
— the fact that we did not receive it! If, however, we were to 
say that this kind of will is nothing but the gift of God, we 
should then have to fear lest unbelieving ungodly men might 
not unreasonably seem to have some fair ground for their un- 
belief, in the fact that God has refused to give them this will. 
Now the apostle's statement: “It is God that worketh in you 
both to will and to do of His own good pleasure,"? refers to 
that grace which faith secures, in order that good works may 
be within the reach of man,—even the good works which faith 
achieves through the love which is shed abroad in the heart 
by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. If we believe that 
we may obtain this grace (and of course believe with our 
will), then the question arises, whence we have this will ?—if 
from nature, why is it not at everybody’s command, since 
the same God made all men? if from God's gift, then again, 
why is not the gift open to all, since “ He will have all men 
to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth ?"? 





Cur. 58.—The free will of man is an intermediate power ; the will of God is 
invincible for ever ; good works the result of grace. 


Let us then, first of all, lay down this proposition, and see 
whether it satisfies the question before us, that our freedom of 
will is naturally assigned by the Creator to our rational soul, 
and that it is an intermediate power, which is able either to 
incline towards faith, or to turn towards unbelief.  Con- 
sequently a man cannot be said to have even that will with 
1 1 Cor. iv. 7. 2 Phil. ii. 13. 3 ] Tim. ii. 4. 


220 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.  . [CHAP. LVIII. 





which he believes in God, without having received it, since 
at the call of God it rises out of that free will which he 
received naturally when he was created. God no doubt 
wishes all men to be saved; but yet not so as to take away 
from them their liberty of will, for the good or the evil use of 
which they may be most righteously judged. This being the 
case, unbelievers indeed do contrary to the will of God when 
they do not believe His gospel; nevertheless they do not over- 
come His will, but they rob their own selves of the great, 
nay, the very greatest, good, and implicate themselves in 
penalties of misery, destined to experience in their punish- 
ment the power of Him whose mercy they despised in His 
gifts. Thus God's will is for ever invincible ; but it would be 
vanquished, unless it could devise what to do with such as 
despised it, or if these despisers could in any way escape 
from the retribution which He has appointed for such as they. 
Suppose a master, for example, who should say to his servants, 
I wish you to labour in my vineyard, and, after your work 
is done, to feast and take your rest; but who, at the same 
time, should require any who refused to work to grind in the 
mill ever after. Whoever neglected such a command would 
evidently act contrary to the master’s will; but he would do 
more than that,—he would vanquish that will, if he also 
despised and refused the mill. This, however, cannot possibly 
happen under the government of God. Whence it is written, 
“ God hath spoken once,’—that is, irrevocably,—although the 
passage may refer to His one only Son. He then adds what 
it is which He had irrevocably uttered, saying: “ Twice have 
I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. Also unto Thee, 
O Lord, doth mercy belong: because Thou wilt render to every 
man according to his work"! He therefore will be guilty 
enough to deserve condemnation under God's mighty hand, 
who shall think too contemptuously of His mercy to believe 
in Him. But whosoever shall put his trust in Him, and yield 
himself up to Him, for the forgiveness of all his sins, for the 
cure of all his corruption, and for the kindling and illumina- 
tion of his soul by His warmth and light, shall find good 
works spring from His grace ; and by them? he shall be even 
¥ Ps; Ixw15 12. ? Ex quibus. | 





CHAP. LIX.] THE MERCY OR GRACE OF GOD. 221 





in his body redeemed from the corruption of death, and be 
crowned, and be satisfied with blessings,—not temporal, but 
eternal,—above what we can ask or understand. 


Cnr. 59.— Mercy and pity in the judgment of God. 


This is the order observed in the psalm, where it is said: 
* Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His recom- 
penses; who forgiveth all thine iniquities ; who healeth all 
thy diseases ; who redeemeth thy life from destruction ; who 
crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercy ; who 
satisfieth thy desire with good things"! And lest by any 
chance these great blessings should be despaired of under the 
corruption and deformity of our old mortal condition, the 
Psalmist at once says, * Thy youth shall be renewed like the 
eagle's ;"^ as much as to say, All that you have heard belongs 
to the renewed man and to the new covenant. Now let us 
consider together briefly these very [statements of the psalm,] 
and with delight examine its eulogy on the mercy, that is, the 
grace of God. ^ Bless the Lord, O my soul,” he says, “ and 
forget not all His recompenses.” Observe, he does not say 
blessings, but recompenses ;? because He recompenses evil with 
good. “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities :” this is done in the 
sacrament of baptism. “Who healeth all thy diseases :” this 
is effected by the believer in the present life, while the flesh 
so lusts against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, that 
we cannot do the things we would ;* whilst also another law 
in our members wars against the law of our mind ;’ whilst to 
will is present indeed to us, but not how to perform that 
which is good. These are the diseases of a man’s old nature, 
which, however, if we only advance with persevering purpose, 
are healed by the growth of the new nature day by day, owing 
to the faith which operates through love.” “Who redeemeth 
thy life from destruction ;” this wil take place at the resur- 
rection of the dead in the last day. * Who crowneth thee 
with loving-kindness and tender mercy ;” this shall be accom- 
plished in ‘the day of judgment ; for when the righteous King 


1 Ps, ciii. 2-5. 2 Ps. ciii. 5. 
3 Non tributiones, sed retributiones. 5 Gal. v. 17. 
$ Rom. vii. 23. 6 Rom. vii. 18. 7 Gal. v. 6. 


222 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. LIX. 





shall sit upon His throne to render to every man according to 
his works, who shall be then able to boast of having a pure 
heart ? or who shall glory of being clean from sin? It was 
therefore necessary to mention God’s loving-kindness and 
tender mercy as present there, where one might expect debts 
to be demanded and deserts recompensed so strictly as to leave 
no room for mercy. Well then does he crown [the edifice of 
grace] with mercy and pity; but even here regard is had to 
works. For the man shall be separately placed on the right . 
hand for it to be said to him, “I was an hungered, and ye 
gave me meat"! There will, however, be also * judgment 
without mercy ;” but it will be for him “ that hath not 
showed mercy.”* But “ blessed are the merciful: for they 
shall obtain mercy "? of God. Then, as soon as those on the 
left hand shall have gone into eternal fire, and the righteous 
into everlasting life,* [these shall experience that of which] 
He says: “This is life eternal, that they may know Thee the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."? 
And with this knowledge, this vision, this contemplation, shall 
the desire of their soul be satisfied; for it shall be enough 
for it to have this and nothing else,—there being nothing 
more for it to desire, to aspire to, or to require. It was with 
a craving after this full joy that his heart glowed who said 
to the Lord Christ, * Show us the Father, and it sufficeth us ;" 
and to whom the answer was returned, * He that hath seen 
me hath seen the Father" Because He is Himself the 
eternal life, in order that men may know, O God, that Thou 
art one only with Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent. If, 
however, he that has seen the Father has also seen the Son, 
then assuredly he who sees the Father and the Son sees also 
the Holy Spirit of the Father and the Son. So we do not 
impair the freedom of man’s will, whilst our soul blesses the 
Lord and forgets not all His recompenses; nor does it, in 
ignorance of God's righteousness, wish to set up one of its 
own ;° but it believes in Him who justifies the ungodly,? and 
until it arrives at the sight of its happiness, it lives by faith, 
! Matt. xxv. 35. 2 Jas. ii. 18. — 5 Matt. v. 7, 


^ Matt. xxv. 46. 5 John xvii. 3. 6 John xiv. 8, 9. 
UPGZÓL 2 8 Rom. x. 3 9 Rom. iv. 5. 








CHAP. LX.] GOD WORKS WILLINGNESS IN MAN. 223 





—even that faith which works by love! And this love is 
shed abroad in our hearts, by no sufficiency of our own will, 
nor by the letter of the law, but by the Holy Ghost who has 
been given to us.” 


Cuap. 60. [xxx1v.]}—The will to believe is from God. 

Let this discussion suffice, as it satisfactorily meets the 
question we had to solve. Since, however, it is objected in 
reply, that we must be on our guard lest any man should 
suppose the sin would have to be imputed to God which is 
committed through our free will, if in the passage where it 
is said, * What hast thou which thou didst not receive ?"? 
the very wil by which we believe in God is therefore 
reckoned as a gift of God, because it arises out of that free- 
dom of our wil which we received at our creation—then 
let the objector attentively observe that the will in question 
must not be ascribed to the divine gift, merely because it 
arises from our freedom of will, which was.created naturally 
with us; for there is another reason, even because God acts 
upon us by the incentives of visible;objects to will and to 
believe ; He also influences us externally by evangelical 
exhortations ; where even.the, commands of the law also do 
something, since they so far admonish a man of his infirmity, 
that he betakes himself to.thegrace that justifies by believ- 
ing; He furthermore affe 8; eur minds by internal influence, | 
in which no man has it nb s own control as to what shall 
enter into his thoughts; if &ppertains, however, to his own 
will either to conse ib. 0 fo, dissent. Since God, therefore, in 













such ways acts ups he reasonable soul, and induces it to 
believe in Him (foy.nothing whatever can possibly trust in 
man’s free will, seeing that it has no persuasiveness and no call 
in which to believe), i surely follows that it is God who works 


in man the ac ]ingness to believe, and in all things 
prevents us wi .His mercy. To yield our consent, indeed, 
or to withho j ever God calls, is (as I have said) the 


0 will. Now this circumstance not only 
does not. inyali 
thou didst : ive ?"* but it really confirms it. For the 


1 Gal. v.& Rom. v. 5. * T Cor. 17.7 41 Cor. iv. 7. 


224 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. LXII. 





soul cannot receive and possess these gifts, which are here 
referred to, except by yielding its own consent. So that what- 
ever it possesses, and whatever it receives, is from God and 
belongs to God; and yet the act of receiving and having be- 
longs, of course, to the receiver and the possessor Now, 
should any man be for constraining us to examine into that 
profound fact of our moral nature, why this person is so far 
advised as to be persuaded, and that person is not, there are 
only two thoughts occurring to me, which I should like to 
advance as my answer: “O the depth of the riches |"! and 
“Ts there unrighteousness with God?"? If the man is dis- 
pleased with such an answer, he must seek more learned 
disputants. Let him beware, however, lest he find in them 
presumptuous wranglers ! 






























fi mA: 161. [xxxv. ]— Conclusion of the work. 

Let us at à rin g our book to an end. I hardly know 
whether we have aééémplished our purpose at all by our great 
prolixity. It is fof? respect of you, [my Marcellinus] that 
I have this miscivifg: know your faith ; but with refer- 
ence to the minds ol " hose for whose sake you wished me to 
write. It is not so Tk y opposition to my opinion, but 
(to speak mildly, and not to jon the doctrine of Him who 
spoke in His apostles) certa : bainst not only the opinion 

his strong, earnest, and 


of the great Apostle Paul, b h 
Aiba conflict, that they prefé Brtaining their own views 
en he “beseeches them 


ES tenacity to listening to hi 
by the mercies of God,” and tells “%through the grace of 
God which was given to him, not to%#hink of themselves more 
highly than they ought to think, but™@*think soberly, accord- 
ing as God had dealt to every man thé"mm@astire of faith."? 

EUM. 


t Pproposed to him. 

But I beg of you to advert to the question whieh you pro- 
posed to me, and to what we have made à f i : the 
lengthy process of this discussion. You were (ei 
I could have said that it was possible for a mai $0 
out sin, if his will were not wanting, by the | 


1 Rom. xi. 88. ? Rom. ix. 14. 3n 


Cnr. 62.—He returns to the question which Marcelll 


d how 
^ rith- 
‘God's 


CHAP. LXIL] — ALL THINGS POSSIBLE WITH GOD. 225 





strength, although no man in the present life had ever lived, 
was living, or would live, of such perfect righteousness. Now, 
in the books which I formerly addressed to you, I set forth 
this very question. I said: “If I were asked whether it be 
possible for a man in this life to be without sin, I should 
allow the possibility, through the grace of God, and the man's 
| own free will; for I should have no doubt that the free will 
| itself is ascribable to God's grace,—in other words, has its 
| place among the gifts of God,—not only as to its existence, 
| but also in respect of its goodness ; that is to say, [it is a gift 
of God] that it applies itself to doing the commandments of 
God. Thus it is that God's grace not only shows a man what 
he ought to do, but also gives him such assistance as secures 
the possibility of that being done which His grace points out 
to be done."! You seemed to think it absurd, that a thing 
which might happen was actually unexampled. Hence arose 
the subject treated of in this book; and thus did it devolve 
on me to show that a thing was possible although no example 
of it could be found. We accordingly adduced certain cases 
out of the gospel and of the law, at the beginning of this 
work,—such as the passing of a camel through the eye of a 
needle ;? and the twelve [thousand] legions of angels, who 
could fight for Christ, if He pleased ;? and those nations 
which God said He could have exterminated at once from the 
face of His people*—none of which possibilities were ever 
reduced to fact. To these instances may be added those 
which are referred to in the Book of Wisdom,’ suggesting 
how many are the strange torments and troubles which God 
was able to employ against ungodly men, by using the 
creature which was obedient to His beck, which, however, 
He did not employ. One might also allude to the supposed 
* mountain," which faith could remove into the sea although 
no realization of such a thing anywhere took place, so far as 
we have ever read‘ or heard. Now you see how thoughtless 


1 See his work preceding this, De Peccat. Meritis, ii. 7. 


2 Matt. xix. 24. 3 Matt. xxvi. 53. 
* Deut. xxxi. 3; comp. Judg. ii. 3. 
5 Wisdom xvi. 6 Matt. xxi. 21. 


7 Augustine, it would then seem, had not met with the statement of Eusebius, 
4 P 


226 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. — [CHAP. LXIII. 





and foolish would be the man who should say that any one of 
these things is impossible with God, and how opposed to the 
sense of Scripture would be his assertion. Many other cases 
of this kind may occur to anybody who reads or thinks, the 
possibility of which with God we cannot deny, although there 
may not be any example of them forthcoming. 


CHa. 63.—An objection. 


But inasmuch as it may be said that the instances which 
I have been quoting are divine works, whereas to live 
righteously is a work that belongs to ourselves, I undertook to 
show that even this too is a divine work. This I have done 
in the present book, with perhaps a fuller statement than is 
necessary, although I seem to myself to have said too little 
against the opponents of the grace of God. And I am never 
so much delighted in my treatment of a subject as when 
Scripture comes most copiously to my aid; and when the 
question to be discussed requires that “he that glorieth should 
glory in the Lord ;"! and that we should in all things lift up 
our hearts and give thanks to the Lord our God, from whom, 
*as the Father of lights, every good and every perfect gift 
cometh down"? Now if a gift is not God's gift, on the ground 
of its being wrought by us, or because we act by His gift, 
then it is not a work of God that “a mountain should be 
removed into the sea," inasmuch as, according to the Lord's 
statement, it is through faith— men's faith—that this is 
possible. Moreover, He attributes the deed to their actual 
, operation: “If ye have faith in yourselves as a grain of 
| mustard-seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou re- 
“moved, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done, and 
nothing shall be impossible £o yow"? Observe how He said 
* to you," not to me or to the Father; and yet it is certain 
that no man does such a thing without God's gift and opera- 
tion. See how unexampled among men is an instance of 


as translated by Rufinus (Hist. vii. 24), to the effect that Gregory, bishop of 
Neocesarea, in Pontus, once performed the miracle of removing a mountain or 
rock from its place ; which Bede also mentions, Commoent. on Mark xi., Book iii. 
V2 Gor, xi 1. * Jas 35145 
3 Compare Matt. xvii. 20, Mark xi. 23, Luke xvii. 6. 


CHAP. LXIV.] LOVE THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW. 221 





perfect righteousness; but yet it is not impossible. For it 
might be achieved if there were only applied as much of a 
favourable will as suffices for so great a work. Now there 
would accrue this just amount of will, if there were not hidden 
from us any of those qualities and conditions which pertain to 
righteousness ; and if these pleasantly affected our mind to 
such a degree, that whatever hindrance of pleasure or pain 
might else occur, this delight in holiness prevailed over every 
rival affection. Now the fact that this is not realized, is not 
owing to any intrinsic impossibility, but to God's judicial act. 
For who can be ignorant of the truth, that it is not in a man’s 
power as to what he should know ; nor does it follow that 
what he has discovered to be a desirable object is actually 
desired, unless he also feel a delight in that object, com- 
mensurate with its claims on his affection? For this is 
characteristic of the soul's healthy condition. 

Cuar. 64. [xxxv1. ]—H0w the commandment to love is fulfilled ; sins of 

ignorance. 

But somebody will perhaps think that we want nothing for 
helping us to the knowledge of righteousness, since the Lord, 
when on earth He summarily and briefly expounded His 
word, informed us that the whole law and the prophets de- 
pend on two commandments ;! nor was He silent as to what 
these were, but declared them in the plainest words: “Thou 
shalt love,” said He, * the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, 
and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind ;” and “Thou 
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.”* What is more surely 
| true than that, if these be fulfilled, all righteousness is ful- 
filled? But the man who sets his mind on this truth must 
also carefully attend to another,—in how many things we all 
of us offend? while we suppose that what we do is pleasant | 
(or, at all events, not unpleasing) to God whom we love; and 
afterwards, having (through His inspired word, or else by 
being warned in some clear and certain way) learned what is 
not pleasing to Him, we pray to Him that He would forgive 
us on our repentance. The life of man is full of examples of 
this. But whence comes it that we fall short of knowing 
what is pleasing to Him, if it be not from the circumstance 

1 Matt. xxii. 40. 2 Matt. xxii. 37, 39. 8 Jas. iii. 2. 


228 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.  [CHAP. LXIV. 





that He is to that extent unknown to us? “For now we see 
through a glass, darkly ; but then face to face.” Who, how- 
ever, can make so bold, on arriving far enough to say : * Then 
shall I know even as also I am known,”? as to think that 
they who shall see God will have no greater love towards Him 
than they have who now believe in Him ? or that the one 
ought to be compared to the other, as if they were in very 
near ratio with each other? Now, if love increases just in 
proportion as our knowledge of its object becomes more inti- 
mate, of course we ought to believe that there is as much 
wanting now to the fulfilment of righteousness as there is 
defective in our love of it. A thing may indeed be known 
or believed, and yet not loved; but it is an utter impossi- 
bility that a thing can be loved which is neither known nor 
believed. But if the saints, in the exercise of their faith, 
could arrive at that great love, than which (as the Lord Him- 
self testified) no greater can possibly be exhibited in the 
present life,—even to lay down their lives for the faith, or for 
their brethren,——then after their pilgrimage here, in which 
their walk is by “ faith," when they shall have reached the 
“sight” of that final happiness* which we hope for, though 
as yet we see it not, and wait for in patience? [then, I say,] 
the very love itself shall undoubtedly be not only greater 
than that which we here experience, but far higher than all 
which we ask or think ;° and yet it cannot be possibly more 
than [we can embrace] with all our heart, and with all our 
soul, and with allour mind.. For there remains in us nothing 
which can be added to the whole; since, if anything did 
remain, there would not be the whole. Therefore the first 
commandment about righteousness, which bids us love the 
Lord with all our heart, and soul, and mind’ (the next to 
which is, that we love our neighbour as ourselves), we shall 
completely fulfil in that life, when we shall see face to face? 
But even now this commandment is enjoined upon us, that 
we may be reminded what we ought by faith to require, and 
to what we should in our hope joi forward to, and, * forget- 





1 1 Cor. xiii. 12. ?1 Cor. xiii. 12, 3 John xv. 13, 
* 2 Cor. v; 7. 5 Rom. viii. 23. $ Eph. iii. 20. 
7 Matt. xxii. 97. 8 1 Cor. xiii. 12, 


CHAP. LXV.] | A CERTAIN PERFECTION EVEN HERE. 229 





ting the things which are behind, reach forth to the things 
which are before"! And thus, as it appears to me, that man 
has made a far advance, even in the present life, in the 
righteousness which is to be perfected hereafter, who has dis- 
covered by this very advance how very far removed he is 
from the completion of righteousness. 


Cuap. 65.—/n what sense a sinless righteousness in this life can be asserted. 

Forasmuch, however, as an inferior righteousness may be 
|, said to be competent to this life, whereby the just man lives 
| by faith,’ although absent from the Lord; still as walking by 
faith, and not yet by sight? it may be said, even in respect 
- of it, that it is free from sin; for it ought not to be attributed 
to it as a fault, that it is not as yet sufficient for so great a love 
to God, as is due to the final, complete, and perfect condition 
thereof. It is one thing to fail at present in attaining to the 
fulness of love, and another thing to be swayed by no lust. 
A man ought therefore to abstain from every unlawful desire, 
however much he loves God now less than it is possible to 
love Him when He becomes an object of sight. It is just the 
same in matters connected with the bodily senses: the eye 
can receive no pleasure from any kind of darkness, although 
it may be unable to look with a firm sight amidst refulgent 
light. Only let us see to it that we so constitute the soul of 
man in this corruptible body, that, although it has not yet 
absorbed and consumed the motions of earthly lust, it never- 
theless, in that inferior righteousness to which we have re- 
ferred, gives no consent to the aforesaid lust for the purpose 
of effecting any unlawful thing. In respect, therefore, of that 
perfect eternal life, the commandment is even now applicable : 
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy might;"* but in reference to 
the present life the following suits: “Let not sin reign in your 
mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof"? To 
the one, again, belongs, * Thou shalt not covet; "6 to the other, 
“Thou shalt not go after thy lusts.”’ To the one it appertains 
to seek for nothing more than to continue in its perfect state ; 


1 Phil. iii. 13. 2 Rom. i. 17. 3.9 Cor. v. 7. 4 Deut. vi. 5. 
5 Rom. vi. 12. SEX TT IL 7 Ecclus. xviii. 30. 


230 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER. [CHAP. LXV. 





to the other it belongs actively to do the duty committed to it, 
and to hope as its reward for the perfection of the future life, — 
so that in the one the just man may live for evermore- in the 
sight of that happiness which in this life was his object of 
desire; in the other, he may live by that faith whereon rests 
his desire for the ultimate blessedness as its certain end. 
(These things being so, it will be sinful in the man who 
walks by faith ever to consent to an unlawful delight, —in 
committing not only frightful deeds and crimes, but even 
trifling faults; sinful, if he lend an ear to a word that ought 
not to be listened to, or a tongue to a phrase which should 
not be uttered; sinful, if he entertains a thought in his heart 
in such a way as to wish that an evil dut were a lawful 
one, although known to be unlawful by the commandment,— 
for this amounts to a consent to sin, which would certainly be 
precipitated in act, unless fear of punishment deterred.) Such 
just men, while living by faith, have no need to say: “ Forgive 
us our debts, as we p our debtors"? And they prove 
that to be wrong which is written, * In Thy sight shall no man 
living be justified ;'? and also the passages: “If we say that 
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in 
us ;"* and, “There is no man that sinneth not;"? and again, 
E There is not on the earth a righteous man, who doeth good 
and sinneth not" (both these statements are expressed in 

a general future sense,—* sinneth, not,” “will not sin,"—not 
in the past time, “has not sinned”); and all other places of 
this purport contained in Holy Scripture. Since, however, 
these passages cannot possibly be false, it plainly follows, to 
my mind, that whatever be the quality or extent of the 
righteousness which we may definitively ascribe to the pre- 
sent life, there is not a man living in it who is absolutely free 
from all sin; and that it is necessary for every one to give, 
that it may be given to him;’ and to forgive, that it may be 
forgiven him;* and whatever righteousness he has, not to 


1 [The Benedictine editor is not satisfied with the place of the lines in the 
parenthesis. He would put them in an earlier position, perhaps before the clause 
. beginning with, ‘* Only let us see to it,” etc. ] 

? Matt. vi 12. .— 9 Ps. exliii. 2. *1Johni 8. 51 Kings viii. 46. 
6 Ecclus. 7 Luke vi. 30, 38. 8 Luke xi. 4. 


CHAP. LXVI] POSSIBILITY OF PERFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS. 231 





presume that he has it of himself, but from the grace of God, 
who justifies him, and stillto go on hungering and thirsting 
for righteousness* from Him who is the living bread? and 
with whom is the fountain of life;? who works in His saints, 
whilst labouring amidst temptation in this life, their justifica- 
tion in such manner that He may still have somewhat to 
impart to them liberally when they ask, and something merci- 
fully to forgive them when they confess it. 

Cnar. 66.— Although perfect righteousness be not found here on earth, it is still 

not impossible. 

But let objectors find, if they can, any man, while living 
under the weight of this corrupt nature, in whom God has 
no longer anything to forgive; they will still—unless they 
dusk that such an i T has been aided in the 
attainment of his good character not merely by the teaching 
of the law which God gave, but also by the infusion of grace 
by His Spirit—incur the charge of ungodliness itself, not of 
this or that particular sin. Of course they are not at all able 
to discover such a man, if they receive in à becoming manner 
the testimony of the divine writings. Still, for all that, it 
must not by any means be said that with God there is no 
possibility whereby the will of man can be assisted to such a 
degree, that there can be accomplished in every respect even 
now in a man, not that righteousness only which is of faith,’ 
but that also in aecordance with which we shall by and by 
have to live for ever in the very vision of God. Now, sup- 
pose even that this corruptible in any particular man should 
wish to put on incorruption, and should desire him so to live 
among mortal men (not destined himself to die) that his old 
nature should be wholly and entirely withdrawn, and there 
should be no law in his members warring against the law of 
his mind/— moreover, that he should discover God to be 
everywhere present, as the saints shall hereafter know and 
behold Him,—who will madly venture to affirm that this is 
impossible? Men, however, ask why it does not do this ; 
but they who raise the question consider not duly the fact 
that they are human. I am quite certain that, as nothing is 


1 Matt. v. 6. ? John vi. 51. * $$ Pg, xxxvi. 9. 
* Rom. x. 6. 5 1 Cor. xv. 53. : 6 Rom. vii. 23. 


232 ON THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER.  [CHAP. LXIV. 





impossible with God, so also there is no iniquity with Him” 
Equally sure am I that He resists the proud, and gives grace 
to the humble? I know also that to him who had a thorn 
in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet him, lest he 
should be exalted above measure, it was said, when he be- 
sought God for its removal once, twice, nay thrice: “ My 
erace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is made perfect 
in weakness.”* There is, therefore, in the hidden depths of 
God’s judgments, a certain reason why every mouth even of 
the righteous should be shut in their own commendation, and 
only opened to celebrate the praise of God. But what this 
certain reason is, who can calculate, who investigate, who 
know? So “unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways 
past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the 
Lord? or who hath been His counsellor? or who hath first 
given to Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ? 
For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to 
whom be glory for ever. Amen.”” 


i Take 137, 2 Rom. ix. 14. 3 Jas. iv. 6. 
4 2 Cor. xii. 7-9. 5 Rom. xi. 33-36. 


A TREATISE 
ON NATURE AND GRACE, 


AGAINST PELAGIUS. 


BY 


AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, 
BISHOP OF HIPPO; 


CONTAINED IN ONE BOOK, ADDRESSED TO TIMASIUS AND JACOBUS. 


WRITTEN IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 415. 


—9—— 


NOTE ON THE FOLLOWING WORK. 


IN a letter (169th) to Evodius, written in the course of 
the year A.D. 415, Augustine assigned to this work, On 
Nature and Grace, the last place of several treatises written 
in that year. *I have also written," says he, * an extensive 
book in opposition to the heresy of Pelagius, at the request of 
some brethren, whom he had persuaded to accept a very 
dangerous opinion injurious to the grace of Christ" The 
work had been begun, but was not completed, when Orosius 
sailed from Africa to Palestine, in the spring of this very 
year of 415; for this man, shortly after his arrival, at a 
council in Jerusalem, where Pelagius was present, expressly 
affirmed, *that the blessed Augustine had prepared a very 
complete answer to Pelagius book, two of whose followers 
had presented the work to him, and requested him to reply 
to it. Jerome, also, at this very time mentioned a certain 
production of Augustine's, which he had not yet seen, wherein 
it was said that he had expressly opposed Pelagius. His 
words, which occur in his third dialogue against the heresy of 
Pelagius, are these: “It is said that he is preparing other 
233 


2984 ON NATURE AND GRACE. 





treatises likewise, especially against your name and opinions." 
Augustine, however, did not actually employ in this work of 
his the name of Pelagius, whose book he was refuting, in 
order that (as he says in his letter [186th] to Paulinus) he 
might not by personal irritation drive him into a more in- 
curable degree of opposition; for he hoped to be of some 
service to his opponent, if by still maintaining friendly terms 
with him he might be able to spare his feelings, although he 
could not in duty show leniency to his writings. Thus, at 
least, he expresses his mind, in his book On the Doings of 
Pelagius, ch. xxii. In this latter passage he subjoins a letter 
which he had received from Timasius and Jacobus, containing 
the expression of great gratitude to Augustine on receiving 
his volume On Nature and Grace, in which they expressed 
“their agreeable surprise" at the answers he had furnished 
to them “on every point" of the Pelagian controversy. In 
the following year Augustine despatched this work, along with 
Pelagius own book, to John, bishop of Jerusalem, in order 
that that prelate might become acquainted with the views of 
the new heresiarch, accompanying the books with a letter to 
the bishop [179th]. In the course of this year 416, he had 
the same two treatises (his own and Pelagius) forwarded to 
Pope Innocent, with a letter [177th] forwarded in the name 
of five bishops, to which Innocent returned an answer [183d]. 
It may be here stated, that in this last-mentioned letter [183, 
n. 5], and in the foregoing epistle [177, n. 6], there is 
honourable mention made of Timasius and Jacobus, as “ con- 
sclentious and honourable young men, servants of God, who 
had relinquished the hope which they had in the world by 
the exhortation of Pelagius himself, and continued diligently 
to serve God. The same persons are described in another 
epistle [179, n. 2] as “ young men of very honourable birth, and - 
highly educated ;” and in the work De Gestis Pelagit, ch. xxiii., 
they are called “ servants of God, good, and honourable men.” 

Julianus [who espoused the side of Pelagius], in his work 
addressed to Florus (book iv. n. 112, of the imperfect work), 
quotes this treatise of Augustine’s as addressed to Timasius, 
and. calumniously pronounces it to be written “against the 
freedom of the human will.” 


EXTRACT FROM “ THE RETRACTATIONS." 235 





From “ The Retractations,’ Book II. chap. 43. 


“ At that time there found its way into my hands a certain 
book of Pelagius’, in which he defends, with all the argu- 
mentative skill he can muster, the nature of man, in dis- 
paragement of that grace of God whereby we are justified 
and become Christians. The treatise, which contains my 
reply to him (and in which I uphold grace, not indeed in 
disparagement of nature, but as that which liberates and con- 
trols nature) I have entitled De naturé et gratiá [* On Nature 
and Grace'] In this work there are sundry short passages, 
quoted by Pelagius, as the words of the Roman bishop and 
martyr, Xystus or Sixtus, vindicated by myself’ as if they 
really were the words of this Sixtus. I thought they were, 
at the time; but I afterwards discovered, that Sixtus the 
heathen philosopher, and not Sixtus the Christian bishop, was 
their author. This treatise of mine begins with the words: 
‘labrum quem misistis’ [‘ The book which you sent me']." 





NE BEGINS WITH AN EXAMINATION CONCERNING NATURE AND CONCERNING 
GRACE; HE SHOWS THAT NATURE, AS PROPAGATED FROM THE FLESH OF 
THE SINFUL ADAM, BEING NO LONGER WHAT GOD MADE IT AT FIRST,— 
FAULTLESS AND SOUND,—REQUIRES THE AID OF GRACE, IN ORDER THAT IT 
MAY BE REDEEMED FROM THE WRATH OF GOD, AND REGULATED FOR THE 
PERFECTION OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ; THAT THE PENAL FAULT OF NATURE 
LEADS TO A MOST RIGHTEOUS PUNISHMENT ; WHILST GRACE ITSELF IS NOT 
BESTOWED OWING TO ANY DESERTS OF OURS, BUT IS GIVEN GRATUITOUSLY : 
THEY, THEREFORE, WHO ARE NOT DELIVERED BY IT ARE JUSTLY CONDEMNED. 
HE AFTERWARDS REFUTES, WITH ANSWERS ON EVERY SEVERAL POINT, A 
WORK BY PELAGIUS, WHO SUPPORTS THE SELF-SAME NATURE IN OPPOSITION 
.TO GRACE. ONE OF THE CHIEF POSITIONS OF PELAGIUS WAS, THAT A MAN 
COULD LIVE WITHOUT SIN; IN HIS DESIRE TO ADVANCE THIS, HE CON- 
TENDED THAT NATURE HAD NOT BEEN WEAKENED AND CHANGED BY SIN ; 
FOR, OTHERWISE, THE MATTER OF SIN WOULD BE ITS PUNISHMENT,—A PRO- 
POSITION WHICH HE THINKS ABSURD,—IF THE SINNER WERE WEAKENED 
TO SUCH A DEGREE THAT HE ONLY COMMITTED MORE SIN. HE GOES ON TO 
ENUMERATE SUNDRY RIGHTEOUS MEN BOTH OF THE OLD AND OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENTS : DEEMING THESE TO HAVE BEEN FREE FROM SIN, HE ALLEGED 
THE POSSIBILITY OF AVOIDING SIN TO BE INHERENT IN MAN ; AND THIS HE 
ATTRIBUTED TO GOD'S GRACE, ON THE GROUND THAT GOD IS THE AUTHOR OF 


! [n chap. 77. 


256 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. I. 





THAT NATURE IN WHICH IS INSEPARABLY INHERENT THIS ALLEGED POSSI- 
BILITY OF AVOIDING SIN. TOWARDS THE END OF THIS TREATISE THERE 
IS AN EXAMINATION OF SUNDRY EXTRACTS FROM OLD WRITERS, WHICH 
PELAGIUS ADDUCED IN SUPPORT OF HIS VIEWS, AND EXPRESSLY FROM 
HILARY, AMBROSE, AND EVEN AUGUSTINE HIMSELF. 


Cuap. 1. [1.]— The occasion of publishing this work ; God's righteousness, 
what it is. 

HE book which you sent to me, my beloved Timasius 
and Jacobus, I have read through hastily, but not 
without considerable attention, omitting only the few points 
which are plain enough to everybody; and I saw in it a 
person of most ardent zeal warm. against those, who, when 
they ought to censure the human will in their own sins, are 
more forward in accusing man’s nature in general, and thereby 
endeavour to excuse their own faults. He shows too great 
a warmth against this evil, which even literary authors have 
severely censured, with the exclamation: “The human race 
wrongly complains of its own nature!"! This same senti- 
ment your author has also treated in a very exaggerated tone, 
with all the powers of his mind. I fear, however, that he 
will chiefly help those “who have a zeal for God, but not 
according to knowledge,’ who, “being ignorant of God’s 
righteousness, and going about to establish their own right- 
eousness, have not submitted themselves to the righteousness 
of God"? Now, what the righteousness of God is, of which 
[the apostle] here speaks, he immediately afterwards explains 
by adding: “ For Christ is the end of the law for righteous- 
ness to every one that believeth."? This righteousness of 
God, therefore, lies not in the commandment of the law, which 
excites fear, but in the aid afforded by the grace of Christ, to 
which alone the fear of the law, as of a schoolmaster; usefully 
conducts. Now, the man who understands this understands 
why he is a Christian. “ If righteousness indeed came by the 
law, then Christ is dead in vain"? Since, however, He did 
not die in vain, in Him only is the ungodly man justified, to 
whom, as believing in Him who justifies the ungodly, his 
faith is reckoned for righteousness? For all men have sinned 


! See Sallust's Prologue to his JuguriAa. ? Rom. Xe. 3. 
tom? x4. * Gal. iii. 24. 5 Ga], ii. 21. 6 Rom. iv. 5. 


Po 


CHAP. II.] NATURAL RIGHTEOUSNESS. 237 





and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by 
His blood Now, all those persons who do not think them- 
selves to belong to the “all who have sinned and fall short 
of the glory of God,” have of course no need to become 
Christians, because “ they that be whole need not a physician, 
but they that are sick ;"? whence it is, that He came not to 
call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.? 


Cuap. 2. [11.]—Faith in Christ not necessary to salvation, if a man without it 


can lead a righteous life; righteousness comes neither by the law nor by 
nature. ; 


Therefore human nature, such as is generated from the 
flesh of the one original transgressor, if it is self-sufficient to 
fulfil the law and to perfect righteousness, ought to be sure 
of its reward, that is, secure of everlasting life, even if in any 
nation or at any former time faith in the blood of Christ was 
quite unknown to it. For God is not so unjust as to deprive 
righteous persons of the reward of righteousness, because they 
had not announced to them the mystery of Christ’s divine 
and human nature, which was manifested in the flesh. For 
how could they believe what they had not heard of; or how 
could they hear without a preacher?? For “faith cometh 
by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. But I say 
(adds he): Have they not heard? Yes, verily; their sound 
went out into all the earth, and their words unto the ends 
of the world.”® Before, however, all this could have been 
accomplished, previous, in fact, to the actual preaching of the 
gospel reaching the utmost bounds of all the earth—because 
there are some remote nations still (although it is.said they 
are very few) to whom the preached gospel has not found its 
way,—what must human nature do, or what has it done? 
For it had either not heard that all this was to take place, or 
had not yet learnt that it was accomplished. What, I say, 
could it do, but believe in God who made heaven and earth, 
by whom also it felt that it had been itself created, and lead 
a right life, and by doing and believing this to accomplish 
His will, unimbued with any faith in the death and resurrec- 
tion of Christ? Well, if this could have been done, or can 


ISRO: liao, 21. 3 Matt. ix. 19. 3 Matt. ix. 13. 
4] Tim. iii. 16. 5 Rom. x. 14. 6 Rom. x. 17, 18. 








238 | ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. IV. 





still be done, then on my side I have to say what the apostle 
said in regard to the law: *In such a case Christ is dead in 
vain! For if he said so much in respect of the law, which 
only the nation of the Jews received, how much more justly 
may it be said of the law of nature, which the whole human 


race has received? If righteousness come by mature, then 


Christ is dead in vain. Since, however, Christ did not die 


in vain, therefore human nature cannot by any means be 
justified and redeemed from God's most righteous wrath—in 
a word, from punishment—except by faith and the mystery? 
of the blood of Christ. 

Cup. 3, [111.]—Nature was created sound and whole; it was afterwards 

corrupted by sin; penal nature the punishment of sin. 

Man’s nature, indeed, was created at first faultless and 
without any sin; but nature, as man now has it, in which 
every one is born from Adam, wants the Physician, being no 
longer in a healthy state. All good qualities, no doubt, 
which it still possesses in its make, its life, its senses, its 


intellect, it has of the Most High God, its Creator and Maker. 


But the flaw, which darkens and weakens all those natural 
goods, it has not contracted from its blameless Creator— 
with a view to its having need of illumination and healing ; 
but from. that original sin, which it committed of its own 
free-will. Accordingly, nature having become guilty, most 
righteously deserves punishment. For, although we are now 
newly created in Christ? we were, for all that; children of 
wrath, even as others are “But God, who is rich in mercy, 
for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we 
were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, 
by whose grace we were saved." ? 


Cuap. 4. [1v.]—Free grace. 


This grace, however, of Christ, without which neither 
infants nor adults can be saved, is not bestowed for any 
merits, but is given freely,’ on account of which it is also 
called graec" “Being justified," says the apostle, * freely 
through His blood"? Whence they, who are not liberated 


S08 gn 3t ? Sacramentum. ? 2 Cor. v. 17. * Eph. ii. 3. 
? Eph.ii.4, 5. — 9 Gratis and gratia. 7 Rom. ii. 24, 








CHAP. VL] THE SAVED CALLED * VESSELS OF MERCY." 239 





through grace, either through their inability as yet to hear 
[from tenderness of age] or through their unwillingness to 
obey ; or again through their not having received, at the 
time when they were unable to hear, that bath of regenera- 
tion, which they might have received and through which 
they might have been saved, are indeed justly condemned ; 
because they are not without sin, either that which they 
have derived from their birth, or that which they have added 
from their own misconduct. “For all have sinned "— 
whether in Adam or in themselves—“ and come short of the 
glory of God.” * 





Cuap. 5. [v.] 

The entire mass, therefore, incurs penalty; and if the 
deserved punishment of condemnation were rendered to all, 
it would without doubt be righteously rendered. They, there- 
fore, who are delivered. therefrom by grace are called, not 
vessels of their own merits, but “vessels of mercy.”? But 
of whose mercy, if not His, Who sent Christ Jesus into the 
world to save sinners, whom He foreknew, and foreordained, 
and called, and justified, and glorified ?? Now, who could 
be so exceedingly mad as to refuse to give ineffable thanks 
to the Mercy which liberates whom it would? The man 
who correctly appreciated the whole subject could not possibly 
blame the justice of God in wholly condemning all men what- 
soever. 


Cuap. 6. [vi.]|—The Pelagians have very strong and active minds. 


If we are simply wise according to the Scriptures, we are 
not obliged to dispute against the grace of Christ, and to | 
make statements attempting to show that human nature 
requires no Physician,—either in infants, because it is whole 
and sound; or in adults, whenever it strives by itself to 
achieve the righteousness which is necessary for itself. Men 
no doubt seem to urge shrewd opinions on these points, 
but it is only word-wisdom, which nullifies the cross of 
Christ. This, however, *is not the wisdom which descendeth 
from above"? The words which follow in the apostle’s 


1 Rom. iii. 23. 3 Rom. ix. 23. 3 Rom. viii. 29, 30. 
21 Gon lm o 5 Jas, iii. 15. 


240 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. VIII. 








statement I am unwilling to quote; for we would rather not 

be thought to do an injustice to our friends, whose very strong 

and active minds we should be sorry to see running in a 

perverse, instead of an upright, course. 

Cuap. 7. [vir.]—He proceeds to confute the work of Pelagius; he refrains as 

yet from mentioning Pelagius" name. 

However ardent, then, is the zeal which the author of the 
book you have forwarded to me entertains against those who 
find a defence for their sins in the infirmity of human nature; 
not less, nay even much greater, should be our eagerness in 
preventing all attempts to render the cross of Christ of none 
effect. Of none effect, however, it is rendered, if it be con- 
tended that by any other means than by Christ's own 
mystery it is possible to attain to righteousness and ever- 
lasting life. This is actually done in the book to which I 
refer—I will not say by its author wittingly, lest I should 
express the judgment that he ought not to be accounted even 
a Christian, but, as I rather believe, unconsciously. He has 
done it, no doubt, with much power; I only wish that the 
ability he has displayed were less like that which insane 
persons are accustomed to exhibit. 

CHAP. 8. [vir ]—4 distinction drawn by Pelagius ; an error of. Pelagius about 
a man’s being free from blame, because he could not have been otherwise. 
For he first of all indulges in a distinction: It is one 

thing, says he, to inquire whether a thing may be, in respect 

of its possibility only ; and another thing, whether or not it 
exists. This distinetion, nobody doubts, is true enough; for 
it follows that whatever is, was able to exist; but it does not 
therefore follow that what is able to exist has existence. 

Our Lord, for instance, raised Lazarus; He unquestionably 

was able to do so. But inasmuch as He did not raise up 

Judas, must we therefore contend that He was unable? He 

certainly was able, but He was not willing. Dor dioe 

had been willing, He could have effected even this, as He 
had the same power as before! For the Son quickeneth 
whomsoever He will? Observe, however, what he means by 

1 Peter Lombard refers to this passage of Augustine, to show that God ean 


do many things which He will not do. See his 1 Sent. Dist. 43, last chapter. 
? John v. 21. 


CHAP. IX.] FALSE REASONING OF PELAGIUS. 241 





this distinction, true and manifest enough in itself, and what 
he endeavours to make out of it. We are treating, says he, 
of what is possible only ; to pass from which to something 
else, except in the case of some certain fact, we deem to [s 
a very serious and extraordinary process. This idea he turns 
over again and again, in many ways and at great length, so 
that no one would suppose that he was inquiring about any 
other point than the possibility of not committing sin. 


Among the many passages in which he treats of this subject, 


occurs the following: I once more repeat my position: I say 
that it is possible for a man to be without sin. What do 


you say ? That it is impossible for a man to be without b 


sin? But I do not say, he adds, that there is a man without ; A 


sin; nor do you say, that there is not a man without sin. 
One contention is about what is possible, and not possible ; 
not about what is, and is not. He then enumerates certain 
passages of Scripture,’ which are usually alleged in opposition 
to them, and insists that they have nothing to do with the 
question, which is really in dispute, as to the possibility or 
otherwise of a man’s being without sin. This is what he 
says: No man indeed is clean from pollution ; and, There is 
no man that sinneth not; and, There is not a just man upon 
the earth; and, There is none that doeth good. There are 
these and similar passages in Scripture, says he, but they 
testify to the point of not being, not of not being able; for 
by testimonies of this sort it is shown what kind of persons 
certain men were at such and such a time, not that they 
were unable to be something else. Whence they are justly 
found to be blameworthy. If, however, they had been of 
such a character, simply because they were unable to be any- 
thing else, they are free from blame. 


Cup. 9. [vi1t. ]—Even they who were not able to be justified are condemned. 


See now what he has in effect said: I affirm that an infant 
born in a place where it was not possible for him to be ad- 
mitted to the baptism of Christ, and being overtaken by death, 
was placed in such circumstances, that is to say, died without 
the bath of regeneration, because it was not possible for him 

1 Job xiv. 2 (Septuagint) ; 1 Kings viii. 46 ; Eccles. vii. 21; Ps. xiv. 1. 
& Q 


es 


242 ON NATURE AND GRACE. | [CHAP. XI. 





to be otherwise. He would therefore absolve him, and, in 
spite of the Lord's sentence, open to him the kingdom of 
heaven. The apostle, however, does not. absolve him, when 
he says: * By one man sin entered into the world, and death 
by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned.”! Rightly, therefore, by virtue of that condemnation 
which runs throughout the mass of human nature, is he not 
admitted into the kingdom of heaven, although he was not 
only not a Christian, but was unable to become one. 
Cuap. 10. [1x.]—He could not be justified, who had not heard of the name of 
Christ ; rendering the cross of Christ of none effect. 

But they say: There is no condemnation in the case; be- 
/ cause the statement that all sinned in Adam, was not made 
because of the sin which is derived from one’s birth, but be- 
cause of men's imitation of him. If, therefore, Adam is said 
to be the author of all the sins which followed his own, be- 
cause he was the first sinner of the human race, then how is 
it that Abel, rather than Christ, is not set down as the head 
of all the righteous, because he was the first righteous man ? 
But I am not speaking of the case of an infant. I take the 
instance of a young man, or an old man, who has died in a 
neighbourhood where he could not hear of the name of Christ. 
Well, could such a man have become righteous by nature and 
free-will; or could he not? If they contend that he could, 
then see what it is to render the cross of Christ of none effect ;” 
it is arguing that any man can be justified by the law of 
nature and his own free-will, We may here also say, Christ 
is dead in vain,? forasmuch as all might accomplish so much 
as this, even if He had never died; now if they were un- 
righteous, they were so because they wished to be, not be- 
cause they were unable to be righteous. But even though a 
man could not be justified at all without the grace of Christ, 
he would absolve him, if he dared, in accordance with his 
words, to the effect that, “if a man were of such a character, 
because he could not possibly have been of any other, he 
would be free from all blame.” 

CHAP ODE TX 
He then starts an objection to his own position, as if, in- 
! Rom. v. 12. zd olo $ Gal, ii, 21. - 


CHAP. XI.] CAN A MAN BE WITHOUT SIN ? 243 





deed, another person had raised it, and says: “A man, you 
will say, may be [without sin]; but it is by the grace of God.” 
He then at once subjoins the following, as if in answer to his 
own suggestion: * I thank you for your kindness, because you 
are not merely content to withdraw your opposition to my 
statement, which you long resisted, and barely to acknow- 
ledge it; but you actually go so far as to bestow your appro- 
bation on it. For to say a thing is possible, although by this 
or by that method, is in fact nothing else than to not only 
assent to its possibility, but also to show the mode and quality 
of its happening. Nobody, therefore, gives a better assent to 
the possibility of anything than the man who allows the mode 
or quality thereof; because, without the thing itself, it is not | 
possible for a thing to be." After this he raises another 
objection against himself: “ But, you will say, you here seem 
to reject the grace of God, inasmuch as you do not even men- 
tionit;" and he then answers the objection: “Now, is it J that 
reject grace, or you—I, who by acknowledging the thing must 
needs also confess the means by which it may be effected, or 
you, who by denying the thing do undoubtedly also deny 
whatever may be the means through which the thing is accom- 
plished ?" He forgot that he was answering one who does not 
deny the thing, and whose objection he had just before set 
forth in these words: “A man may be [without sin]; but it 
is by the grace of God.” How then does that man deny the 
possibility, in defence of which his opponent earnestly con- 
tends, when he makes the admission to that opponent that 
* the thing is possible, but only by the grace of God?”  Dis- 
missing, however, the circumstance that he already acknow- 
ledges the essential thing, what are we to say to the fact that 
he still has a question against those who maintain the impos- 
sibility of a man's being without sin? Let him ply his 
questions against amy opponents he pleases, provided he only 
confesses this truth, which cannot be denied without the most 
criminal impiety, that a man cannot be without sin except by . 
the grace of God. He says, indeed: * Whether it be by grace, 
or by divine aid, or by mercy, whatever that be by which a 
man can be without sin, every one acknowledges the same 
who admits the thing itself." 


244 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XIII. 





Cuap. 12. [xr. ]—/n our discussions about grace, we do not speak of that which 
relates to the constitution of our nature, but to its restitution. 


I confess to [a fellow-feeling in] your love. When I read 
those words I was filled with a sudden joy, because he did not 
deny that grace of God by which alone a man can be justi- 
fied ; for it is this [denial] which I mainly detest and dread 
in discussions of this kind. But when I went on to read the 
rest, I began to have my suspicions, first of all, from the similes 


he employs. He says: “If I were to say, man is able to dis- 


pute; a bird is able to fly; a hare is able to run; without 
mentioning at the same time the instruments by which these 
acts can be accomplished—that is, the tongue, the wings, and 
thelegs; should I then have denied the methods of the various 
offices, when I acknowledged the very offices themselves ?" It 
is at once apparent that he has here instanced. such things as 
are by nature efficient and unimpaired; for the members of 
the bodily structure which are here mentioned are created 


with natures of such a kind—the tongue, the wings, the legs. - 


He has not here assumed any such position as we wish to 
have understood by grace—the grace without which no man 
is justified ; for this is a topic which is concerned about the 
cure, not the constitution, of natural functions. Entertaining, 
then, some apprehensions, I proceeded to read all the rest, and 
I soon found that my suspicions had not been unfounded. 

Cuap. 13. [xrr.]— The scope and purpose of the law's threatenings ; perfect 

wayfarers. 

But before I proceed further, see what he has said. When 
treating the question about the difference of sins, and starting 
as an objection to himself, what certain persons allege, “ that 
some sins are light by their very frequency, their constant 
irruption making it impossible that they should be all of them 
avoided ;” he thereupon contended that it was “ improper that 
such offences should be censured as even light or trifling, if 
they are altogether unavoidable.” He of course does not 
notice the Scriptures of the New Testament, wherein we learn! 
that the intention of the law in its censure is this, that, by 
reason of the transgressions which men commit, they may flee 
for refuge to the grace of the Lord, who has pity upon them— 


1 We have read discimus, not dicimus, 








CHAP. XV.] A WORD OF ADVICE. 245 





»1l ¢ 


*the schoolmaster shutting them up unto the same faith 
which should afterwards be revealed ;"? that by it their trans- 
gressions may be forgiven, and then not again be committed, 
by God's assisting grace. The road indeed belongs to all who 
are progressing in it; although it is they who make a good 
advance that are called perfect travellers. That, however, is 
complete perfection which admits of no addition, when the 
goal to which men tend has begun to be possessed. 


Cuap. 14. [x111.] 


But the truth is, the question which is proposed to him— 
“ Are you even yourself without sin ?”—does not really belong 
to the subject in dispute. That, however, which he says, that 
* jt is rather imputable to his own negligence that he is not 
without sin," is no doubt well spoken; but then he should 
deem it to be his duty even to pray to God that this faulty 
negligence get not the dominion over him. A certain man 
once put up such an entreaty, when he said: * Order my 
steps according to Thy word, and let not any iniquity have 
dominion over me."? [Such, I say, should be his prayer,] 
lest, whilst relying on his own diligence as on strength of his 
own, he should fail to attain to the true righteousness either 
by this way [of self-reliance], or by that other method where, 
no doubt, such righteousness is to be desired and hoped for 
in perfection. 

Cuap. 15. [xiv.]—Not everything [of doctrinal truth] is written in Scripture in 
so many words. 

That, too, which is said to him, “ that it is nowhere written 
in so many words, A man can be without sin,” he easily re- 
futes thus: “ That the question here is not in what precise 
words each doctrinal statement is made.” It is perhaps not 
without reason that, while in several passages of Scripture we 
may find it said that men are without complaint it is nowhere 
found that any man is described as being without sin, except 
Him only, of whom it is plainly said, that * He knew no sin."? 
Similarly, we read in the passage where the subject is con- 


1 Gal. iii. 24. ? Gal. iii. 23. 5 Psoexix, 138. 
* Sine querela ; without complaining of their sinful malady. 
5 2 Cor. v. 21. 


246 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XVI. 





cerning priests: “He was in all points tempted like as we 
are, only without sin,"'— meaning, of course, in that flesh 
which bore the likeness of sinful flesh, although it was not 
sinful flesh ; a likeness, indeed, which it would not have borne 
if it had not been in every other respect the same as sinful 
flesh. There is, however, a passage [which seems opposed to 
our statement]: “ Whosoever is born of God doth not commit 
sin; neither can he sin, for his seed remaineth in him;”? 
while the Apostle John himself expressly uses language as if 
he had not been born of God, or else were addressing men 
who had not been born of God, when he lays down this posi- 
tion: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, 
and the truth is not in us"? The sense, however, in which 
such passages ought to be received, I have already explained, 
with such care as I was able, in those books which I wrote 
to Marcellinus on this very subject It seems, moreover, to 
me to be an interpretation worthy of acceptance to regard 
the clause of the above quoted passage: “ Neither can he sin,” 
as if it meant: He ought not to commit sin. For who could 
be so foolish as to say that sin ought to be committed, when, 
in fact, sin is sin, for no other reason than that it ought not 
to be committed ? 

CuAp. 16. [xv.]|—Pelagius corrupts a passage of the yo James by adding 

a note of interrogation. 

Now that passage, in which the Apostle James says: “ But 
the tongue can no man tame," does not appear to me to be 
capable of the interpretation which he would put upon it, 
when he expounds it, *as if it were written by way of re- 
proach; as much as to say: Can no man, then, tame the 
tongue? As if in a reproachful tone, which would say: You 
are able to tame wild beasts; cannot you tame the tongue? 
As if it were an easler thing to tame the tongue than to sub- 
jugate wild beasts." I do not think that this is the meaning 
of the passage. For, if he had meant such an opinion as this 
to be entertained of the facility of taming the tongue, there 
would have followed in the sequel of the passage a comparison 
of that member with the beasts. As it is, however, it simply 


1 Heb. iv. 15. ? 1 John iii. 9. ? 1 John i. 8. 
4 See the De Peccat. Meritis et Remissione, ii. 10. 5 Jas. iii. 8. 


CHAP. XVIL] WHAT IT IS TO TAME THE TONGUE. 247 





goes on to say: * The tongue is an unruly evil, full of deadly 
poison,"I— such, of course, as is more noxious than that of 
beasts and creeping things. For while the one destroys the 
flesh, the other kills the soul.  * The mouth that belieth 
slayeth the soul"? It is not, therefore, in the sense that this 
is an easier achievement than the taming of beasts that St. 
James pronounced the statement before us, or would have 
others utter it; but he rather aims at showing what a great 
evil in man his tongue is—so great, indeed, that it cannot be 
tamed by any man, although even beasts are tameable by 
human. beings. And he said so much as this, not with a 
view to our permitting the subjugation of so great an evil to 
ourselves to pass by through our neglect, but in order that we 
might be induced to request the help of divine grace for the 
taming of the tongue. For he does not say: “None [nullus] 
can tame the tongue;” but “No man [nullus hominum] ; " 
that, when it is tamed, we may acknowledge it to be effected 
by the mercy, the help, the grace of God. The soul, therefore, 
should endeavour to tame the tongue, and while endeavouring 
should pray for assistance; the tongue, too, should beg for the 
taming of the tongue,—He being the tamer who said to His 
disciples: *It is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your 
Father which speaketh in you"? So that we are warned and — 
taught by such a precept to do this,—namely, first make the 
attempt, and, failing in our own strength, then to pray for the 
help of God. 
Cuap, 17. [xv1.] 

Accordingly, after emphatieally describing the evil of the 
tongue— saying, among other things: “My brethren, these things 
ought not so to be" *—he at once, after finishing some suitable 
remarks which arose out of his subject, goes on to add this 
advice, showing by what help those things would not happen, 
which (as he said) ought not to be: * Who is a wise man and 
endowed with knowledge among you? Let him show out of 
a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom. But 
if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not 
and lie not against the truth. This wisdom descendeth not 
from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. For where there 

! Jas, iii. 8. 2 Wis d LE ? Matt. x. 20. * Jas. iii. 10. 


248 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XVIII. 





is envying and strife, there is confusion and every evil work. 
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peace- 
able, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good 
fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”! This is 
the wisdom which tames the tongue; it descends from heaven, 
but springs from no human heart. Will any one, then, dare 
to divorce it from the grace of God, and with most arrogant 
vanity place it in the power of man? Why should I pray to 
God that it be accorded me, if it is of man that it must be 
obtained? Is it not a contradiction to such prayer to appre- 
hend any injury being done to that free-will which is self- 
sufficient in natural ability for discharging all the duties of 
righteousness? It must, therefore, be a contradiction even to 
the Apostle James himself, who admonishes us in these words: 
“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth 
to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given 
him; but let him ask in faith, nothing doubting.”? This is 
the faith to which the commandments drive us, in order that 
the law may prescribe our duty and faith accomplish it? For 
through the tongue, which no man can tame, but only the 
wisdom which comes down from above, “in many things we 
all of us offend.”* For this truth also the same apostle pro- 
nounced in no other sense than that which he afterwards 
declares [in the words already quoted]: * The tongue no man 
can tame." ? 
Cuap. 18. [xvir.]— Who may be said to be in the flesh. 

There is a passage which nobody could place against these 
texts with the similar purpose of showing the impossibility of 
not sinning: “The carnal mind [or wisdom of the flesh] is 
enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, 
neither indeed can be; so then they that are in the flesh 
cannot please God ;”° for he here mentions the wisdom of the 
flesh, not the wisdom which cometh from above: moreover, it 
is manifest, that in this passage, by the phrase, “ being in the 
flesh," are signified, not those who have not yet quitted the 
body, but those who live after the flesh. The question, how- 
ever, we are discussing does not lie in this point. But what 


! Jas. iii. 18-17, * Jas. i. 5, 6. ? Ut lex imperet et fides impetret. 
* Jas. iii. 2. ? Jas. iii. 8. $ Rom. viii. 7, 8. 


CHAP. XX.] SINS OF IGNORANCE. 249 





I want to hear from him, if I can, is [his opinion] about those 
who live after the Spirit, and who on this account are not in 
a certain sense in the flesh, even while they still live here,— 
whether [he thinks that] they, by God's grace, live after the 
flesh, or have resources enough of their own, natural capability 
having been bestowed on them when they were created, and 
their own proper will besides. Whereas the fulfilling of the 
law is nothing else than love;' and God's love is shed abroad 
in our hearts, not by our own selves, but by the Holy Ghost 
whieh is given to us? 

Cuap. 19.—Sins of ignorance ; to whom wisdom is given by God on their 

requesting it. 

He further treats on sins of ignorance, and says that “a 
man ought to be very careful to avoid ignorance; and that 
ignorance is blameworthy for this reason, because it is through 
his own neglect that a man is ignorant of that which he cer- 
tainly must have known if he had only applied diligence ;" 
whereas he prefers disputing all things rather than pray, and 
say: “Give me understanding, that I may learn Thy com- 
mandments.”* It is, indeed, one thing to have taken no 
pains to know what sins of negligence were apparently ex- 
piated through divers sacrifices of the law; it is another thing 
to wish, but to be unable to understand, and then to act con- 
trary to the law, through not understanding what it would 
have done. We are accordingly enjoined to ask of God 
wisdom, “ who giveth to all men liberally ;” * that is, of course, 
to all men who ask in such a manner, and to such an extent, 
as so great a matter requires in earnestness of petition. 

Cuap. 20. [xvur.]— What prayer Pelagius would admit to be necessary. Ti is 
foolish to pray that you may do what you have in your own control. — 

He confesses that “sins which have been committed do 
notwithstanding require divine interposition for their atone- 
ment, and that the Lord must be entreated because of them,"— 
that is, for the purpose, of course, of obtaining pardon ; * because 
that which has been done cannot,” it is his own admission, “ be 
undone,” by that “power of nature and will of man" which 
he talks about so much. From this necessity therefore it 
follows that a man must pray to be forgiven. That a man, 


1 Rom. xiii. 10. ? Rom. v. 5. 3 Ps, cxix. 73. 5Jas. 1. 5. 


250 ON NATURE AND GRACE. - (CHAP. Xxr. 





however, requires to be helped not to sin, he has nowhere 
admitted ; I read no such admission in this passage ; he keeps 
a strange silence on this subject altogether; although the 
Lord's Prayer enjoins upon us the necessity of praying both 
that our debts may be remitted to us, and that we may not 
be led into temptation,—the one petition entreating that past 
offences may be atoned for; the other, that future ones may 
be avoided. Now, although this is never done unless our will 
be assistant, yet our will alone is not enough to secure its 
being done; the prayer, therefore, which is offered up to God 
for this result is neither superfluous nor offensive to the Lord. 
For what is more foolish than to pray that you may do that 
which you have it in your own power to do ? 
Cuap. 21. [x1x.]}—Pelagius denies that human nature has been depraved or 
corrupted by sin. 

You may now see (what bears very closely on our subject) 
how he endeavours to exhibit human nature, as if it were 
wholly without fault, and how he struggles against the plainest 
of God's Scriptures with that “ word-wisdom ”* which renders 
the cross of Christ of none effect. That cross, however, shall 
certainly never be so impaired; rather shall such wisdom be 
subverted. Now, after we shall have demonstrated this, it 
may be that God’s mercy may visit him, so that he may be 
sorry that he ever expressed the following sentiments: “ We 
have,” he says, “first of all to discuss the position which is 

maintained, that our nature has been weakened and changed 
by sin. I think,” continues he, “that before all other things 
we have to inquire what sin is,—whether it be a substance, 
or an entirely unsubstantial name, whereby is-expressed not a 
reality, not an existence, not a body, but the doing of a 
wrongful deed." He then adds: *I suppose that this is the 
case; and if so,” he asks, “how could that which lacks all 
substance have possibly weakened or changed human nature?" 
Observe, I beg of you, how in his ignorance he struggles to 
overthrow the most salutary words of the remedial Scriptures: 
“T said, O Lord, be merciful unto me; heal my soul, for I 
. have sinned against Thee"? Now, how can a thing be healed, 
if it is not wounded nor hurt, nor weakened and vitiated ? 

IuLCOR LU. ? Ps, xli. 4. 


CHAP. XXIL] HUMAN NATURE CORRUPTED BY SIN. 251 





But, as there is here something to be healed, whence did it 
receive its injury? You hear [the Psalmist] confessing the 
fact; what need is there of discussion? He says: “ Heal my 
soul" Ask him how that which he wants to be healed be- 
came injured, and then listen to his following words: “Be- 
cause I have sinned against Thee.” If, however, he were to 
put a question [to the Psalmist], and ask him what he deemed’ 
a suitable inquiry, and say: O you who exclaim, Heal my 
soul, for I have sinned against Thee! pray tell me what sin 
is? Is it a substance or an entirely unsubstantial name, 
whereby is expressed, not a reality, not an existence, not a 
body, but merely the doing of a wrongful deed? Then the 
other returns for answer: It is even as you say ; sin is not a 
substance; under its name there is merely expressed the 
doing of a wrongful deed.  Dut he rejoins: Then why cry 
out, Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee? How 
could that have possibly vitiated your soul which lacks all 
substance? Then would the other, worn out with the anguish 
of his wound, in order to avoid being diverted from prayer by 
the discussion, briefly answer and say: Go from me, I beseech 
you; rather discuss the point, if you can, with Him who 
said: “They that are whole need no physician, but they that 
are sick; I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners,’ * 
—in which words, of course, He designated the righteous as 
the whole, and sinners as the sick. 


Cup. 22. [xx. ]—H ow our nature could be vitiated by sin, even though it be not 
a substance. 


Now, do you not perceive the tendency and direction of this 
controversy ? Even to render of none effect the Scripture 
where it is said: “Thou shalt call His name Jesus, for He 
shall save His people from their sins"? For how is He to 
save where there is no malady? For the sins, from which 
this gospel says Christ’s people have to be saved, are not sub- 
stances, and according to him are incapable of vitiating [our 
nature]. My brother, how good a thing it is to remember 
that you are a Christian! To believe, as you would have us, 
might perhaps be enough; but still, since you persist in dis- 
cussion, there is no harm, nay there is even benefit, if a firm 

1 Matt. ix. 12, 13. 2 Matt. i. 21. 


252 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XXIII. 





faith precede it; if, too, we refrain from thinking that human 
nature cannot be vitiated by sin; but rather, believing, after 
the inspired Scriptures, that it is thereby vitiated, let our in- 
quiry be how this could possibly have come about. Since, 
then, we have already learnt that sin is not a substance, do 
we not consider, not to mention any other example, that not 
to eatis also not a substance? Because such abstinence is 
withdrawal from a substance, inasmuch as food is a substance. 
To abstain, then, from food is not a substance; and yet the 
substance of our body, if it does altogether abstain from food, 
so languishes, is so impaired by broken health, is so exhausted 
of strength, so weakened and broken with very weariness, that 
even if it be in any way able to continue alive, it is hardly 
capable of being restored to the use of that food, by abstaining 
from which it became so vitiated and injured. In the same 
way sin is not a substance; but God is a substance, yea the 
highest substance and only true sustenance of the reasonable 
creature. The consequence of departing from Him by dis- 
obedience, and of being unable, through infirmity, to receive 
what one ought really to rejoice in, you hear from the Psal- 
mist, when he says: “My heart is smitten and withered like 
grass, since I have forgotten to eat my bread."! 


Cur. 23. [xx1. ]J— Adam delivered by the mercy of Christ. 


But observe how, by specious arguments, he continues to 
oppose the truth of Holy Scripture. The Lord Jesus, who is 
called Jesus because He saves His people from their sins? in 
accordance with this His merciful character, says: “They that 
_be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I am 
come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."? 
Accordingly, His apostle also says: “This is a faithful saying, 
and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the 
world to save sinners"* This man, however, contrary to the 
faithful and all-acceptable saying, declares that “this sickness 
of man's nature could not have been contracted by sins, else 
the punishment of sin would amount to this, that more sins 
would be committed." Even infants require the help of the 
Great Physician. This writer asks: * Why want Him for 

1 Ds. oii. 4. ? Matt, i. 21. 3 Matt. ix. 12. €1 Tim. 3:15 


CHAP. XXIV.] NATURAL BIAS TO SIN. 253 





them? They, are already whole for whom you propose to 
fetch the Physician. Not even was the first man condemned 
to die for any such reason, for he committed no sin afterwards." 
As if he had ever heard anything of his subsequent perfection 
in righteousness, except so far as the Church commends to 
our faith that even Adam was delivered by the mercy of the 
Lord [Jesus] Christ. “As to his posterity also,” says he, 
“not only are they not more infirm than he, but they actually 
fulfilled more commandments than he ever did, since he 
neglected to fulfil even one" The posterity which [our 
author] sees born with such faculties, though certainly not 
made as Adam was, are not only unequal to the command- 
ment, which they are altogether inexperienced in, but they 
are hardly capable of sucking the breast, when their appetite 
craves; yet even these would He have to be saved in the 
bosom of Mother Church by His grace Who saves His people 
from their sins; but these men gainsay such grace, and, as 
if they had a deeper insight into the creature than ever He 
possesses who made the creature, they pronounce [these infants] 
sound with an assurance which is anything but sound itself. 


Cuap. 24. [xxrr. }+Sin and the penalty of sin the same. Blindness of the heart. 


“The very matter,” says he, “of sin must also be its 
punishment, since the sinner is so much weakened that he 
commits more sins.” He does not consider how justly the 
‘light of truth forsakes the man who transgresses the law. 
When thus deserted, he of course becomes blinded, and neces- 
sarily goes on committing offences; by so falling he is em- 
barrassed, and being embarrassed he fails to rise, even so far 
as to hear the voice of the law, which admonishes him to beg 
for the Saviours grace. Is no punishment due to them of 
whom the apostle says: * Because that, when they knew 
God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; 
but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart 
was darkened ?”! This darkening was, of course, already their 
punishment; and yet through this very penalty — that is, 
through their blindness of heart, which supervenes on the 
withdrawal of the light of wisdom—they fell into more grievous 

1 Rom. i. 21. 


254 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XXIV. 





sins still. For giving themselves out as wise, they became 
fools. This is a grievous penalty, if one only understand it; 
and from such a penalty only see to what lengths they ran: 
* They changed,” as the apostle goes on to say, “the glory of 
the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible 
man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things."! 
All this they did owing to that penalty of their sin, whereby 
their foolish heart was darkened. And yet, owing to these 
deeds of theirs, which, although coming in the way of pun- 
ishment, were none the less sins, he goes on to say: “ Where- 
fore God also gave them up to uncleanness, through the lusts 
cf their own hearts"? See how severely God condemned them, 
giving them over to uncleanness in the very desires of their 
heart. Observe also the sins they commit owing to such con- 
demnation: “To dishonour,” says he, “their own bodies among 
themselves.”® Here is the punishment of iniquity, which is 
itself iniquity; a fact which sets forth in a clearer light the 
words which follow: “ Who changed the truth of God into a 
lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the. 
Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause,” says 
he, “ God gave them up unto vile affections.”* See how often 
God inflicts punishment; and out of the self-same punishment 
sins, more numerous and more severe, arise. “ For even their 
women did change the natural use into that which is against 
nature; and likewise the men also, leaving the natural use of 
the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men 
with men working that which is unseemly.”’ Then, to show 
that these things were not only sins themselves, but were also 
the penalties of sins, he further says: “And receiving in 
_ themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.”® 

Observe how often it happens that the very punishment which 
. God inflicts begets other sins as its natural offspring. Attend 
still further: “And even as they did not like to retain God 
in their knowledge,” says he, “God gave them over to a repro- 
bate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being 
filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covet- 
ousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, 


1 Rom. i. 23. 2 Rom. i. 24. 3 Rom. i. 24. 
* Rom. i. 25, 26. Som. 1 206. 97. 6 Rom. i. 27. 
ae É 
whe eee 








CHAP. XXY.] THE GOD-FORSAKEN. 255 





malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, 
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 
without understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural 
affection, implacable, unmerciful.”* Here, now, let our oppo- 
nent say: “Sin ought not to have been punished in this way, 


/ that the sinner, through his punishment, should commit even 


more sins.” 


Crap. 25. [xxtir. ]— God. only forsakes those who deserve to be forsaken. We 
/ are ourselves sufficient to commit sin ; but we are not able to return to the . 
way of righteousness. Death is the punishment, not the cause of sin. There 

is nothing good without grace. 


Perhaps he may say in answer: God does not compel men 
to do these things; He only leaves those alone who deserve 
to be forsaken. If he does say this, he says what is most 
true. For, as I have already remarked, those who are forsaken 
by the light of righteousness, and are therefore groping in 
darkness, produce nothing else than those works of darkness 
which I have enumerated; until such time as it is said to 
them, and they obey the command: “ Awake thou that sleepest, 
and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."? 
Truth designates them as dead; whence the passage: “ Let 
the dead bury their dead.” The truth [I repeat] designates 
as dead those whom he declares to have been incapable of 
receiving hurt or damage from sin, on the ground, forsooth, 
that he has discovered sin to be no substance. Nobody tells 


, him that “man was so formed as to be able to pass from 


| righteousness to sin, and yet not be able to return from sin to 


righteousness.” But that freedom of his will, whereby man 
vitiated his own self, was sufficient for his falling into sin; 
in order, however, for him to return to righteousness, he has 


need of a Physician, since he is out of health; and requires 


one to revive him, because he is dead. Now about such grace - 
as this he says not a word, as if he were able to cure himself 
by his own will and choice, since this alone was able to ruin 
him. Nor do we tell him that “the death of the body is 
enough to produce sin," because it is only its punishment; 
for no one sins by undergoing the death of his body. The 
death of the soul, however, is conducive to sin, forsaken as 16 
! Rom. i. 28-81. ? Eph. v. 14. 


256 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XXVI. 





is by its life, that is, God ; and it must needs produce dead 
works, until it revives by the grace of Christ. God forbid that we 
should assert that * hunger and thirst and other bodily suffer- 
ings necessarily produce sin." The life of the righteous, when 
exercised by such ailments, only shines out with greater lustre, 
and procures a greater glory by overcoming them through 
patience; but then it is assisted by the grace, by the Spirit, 
by the mercy of God; not exalting itself in an arrogant will, 
but eliciting courage by a humble confession. For it had 
learnt to say unto God: * Thou art my hope; Thou art my 
trust." Now, how it happens that concerning this grace, and 
help and mercy, without which we cannot live, he has nothing 
to say, lam at a loss to know. But he goes further, and in 
the most open manner gainsays the grace of Christ, whereby 
we are justified, by insisting on the self-sufficiency of nature 
to work righteousness, provided only the will be present. The 
reason, however, why, after sin has been released from its 
guil& by grace, or the exercise of faith, there should still 
remain the death of the body, which proceeds from sin,I 
have already explained, according to my ability, in those 
books which I wrote to Marcellinus of blessed memory? 
Cuap. 26. [xx1v. ]— Christ died of His own power and choice. 

As to his statement, indeed, that “the Lord was able to die 
without sin," [we may observe, in reply,] that being born also 
was in His case the choice and capacity of His mercy, not the 
condition of His nature: so, likewise, did He undergo death of 
His own choice and power; and this is, in fact, our ransom, 
the price He paid to redeem us from death. Now, this truth 
their contention labours hard to nullify; for human nature is 
maintained by them to be so [complete], that with its freedom 
of will it wants no such ransom in order to be translated from 
the power of darkness, and of him who has the power of death,” 
into the kingdom of Christ the Lord And yet, when the 

bp IL 

? [The tribune Marcellinus had been put to death, in the September of 413, 
* having, though innocent, fallen a victim to the cruel hatred of the tyrant 
Heraclius," as Jerome writes in his book iii. against the Pelagians. Honorius 
mentions him as a ** man of conspicuous renown,” in a law enacted August 80, 


in the year 414, contained in the Cod. Theod. xvi. 5 (de hereticis), line 55.] 
3 Hob. ii. 14. “Col. 5 18. 


c— 
"- 


CHAP. XXVIII.] EVEN EVILS ARE OF USE. 257 





Lord approached His passion, He said, “ Behold, the prince 
of this world cometh and shall find nothing in me,” —and 
therefore no sin, of course, owing to which he might exercise 
dominion over Him, so as to destroy Him. “ But,’ added He, 


.* that the world may know that I do the will of my Father, 


99 2 
A 


arise, let us go hence;"" as much as to say, I am going to 
die, not through the necessity of sin, but in the voluntariness 


of my own obedient will. 


Cuap. 27.—Lven evils, through God's mercy, are of use. 


He asserts that “no evil is the cause of anything good ;” 
as if punishment, forsooth, were a good; although thereby 
many have been reformed. There are, then, evils which are 
of use by the wondrous mercy of God. Did that man experi- 
ence some good thing, when he said, “ Thou didst hide Thy face 
from me, and I was troubled ?"? Certainly not; and yet this 
very trouble was to him in a certain manner a remedy against 
his pride. For he had said in his prosperity, “I shall never 
be moved;"* and so was ascribing to himself what he was 
receiving from the Lord. “For what had he that he did not 
receive ?"? It had, therefore, become necessary to show him 
whence he had received everything, that he might receive in 


 humility what he had lost in pride. Accordingly, he says, 


* In Thy good pleasure, O Lord, Thou didst add strength to 
my beauty." In this abundance of mine I once used to say, 
* | shall not be moved ;" whereas it all came from Thee, not 
from myself. Then at last Thou didst turn away Thy face 
from me, and I became troubled. 


Cuar. 28. [xxv.]— he disposition of nearly all who go astray. With some 
heretics our business ought not to be disputation but prayer. The gravity 
of Adam’s sin. 


Man’s proud disposition has no relish at all for this; God, 
however, is great, in persuading even 4 how to find it all out. 
We are, indeed, more inclined to seek how best to reply to such 
arguments as oppose our going astray, than eager to experience 
how salutary would be our condition if we were free from error. 
We ought, therefore, to encounter all such [restive tempers], 

1 John xiv. 30. 2 John xiv. 31. 3 Pay xxx 7. 


PPSGxr 5 51 Cor. iv. 7. 6 Ps, xxx. 7 (Septuagint). 
4 R 


{ 


258 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XXIX. 





not by discussions, but rather by prayers both for them and 
for ourselves. For we never say to them, what this opponent 
has paradoxically advanced to himself, that “sin was necessary 
in order that there might be a cause for God's mercy.” Would 
there had never been misery to need that mercy! But the 
iniquity of sin,— which is so much the greater in proportion 
to the ease wherewith man might have avoided sin, whilst no 
infirmity did as yet beset him,—has been followed closely up 
by a most righteous punishment; even that [offending man] 
should receive in himself the mutual reward of his sin, losing 
that obedience of his body which had been in some degree put 
under his own control and which he had despised when it 
was so remarkably displayed in his Lord. And, inasmuch as 
we are now born with the self-same law of sin, which in our 
members resists the law of our mind, we ought never to 
murmur against God, nor to dispute in opposition to the 
clearest fact, but to seek and pray for His mercy instead 
of our punishment. 


CHap. 29. [xxvi.]—A simile to show that God's grace is-necessary for doing any 
good work whatever. God never forsakes the justified man if He be not 
Himself forsaken.} 


Observe, indeed, how cautiously he expresses himself : * God, 
no doubt, applies His mercy even to this object, whenever it 
is necessary; because man after sin requires help in this way, 
—not because God wished there should be a cause for such 
necessity.” Do you not see how he does not say that God’s 
grace is necessary to prevent us from sinning, but because we 
have sinned? ‘Then he adds: “ But just in the same way it 
is the duty of a physician to be ready to cure a man who is 
already wounded; although he ought not to wish for a man 
who is sound and whole to be wounded.” Now, if this simile 
suits the subject of which we are treating, human nature is 
certainly incapable of receiving a wound from sin, inasmuch 
as sin is not a substance. As therefore, for example’s sake, a 
man who is lamed by a wound is cured for the simple purpose 
of his step for the future being direct and strong, now that its 
past infirmity is healed, so does the Heavenly Physician cure 
our maladies, not only that they may cease any longer to 

1 [See the treatise De Peccatorum Meritis, ii, 22.] 


CHAP. Xxx GOD'S NEVER-FAILING HELP. 259 





exist, but in order that we may ever afterwards be able to 
walk aright,—an accomplishment to which we should be un- 
equal, even after our healing, except by His continued help. 
For after a medical man has administered a cure, in order 
that the patient may be afterwards duly nourished with bodily 
elements and aliments, for the completion and continuance of 
the said cure by suitable means and help, he commends him 
to God's good care, who bestows these aids on all who live in 
the flesh, and from whom proceeded even those means which 
[the physician] applied during the process of the cure. Tt is 
not out of any resources which he has himself created that the 
medical man' effects any cure, but out of the resources of Him 
who creates all things which are required by the whole and 
by the sick. God, however, unless He be first forsaken, never 
withdraws His help from men, that they may lead constant 
lives of piety and holiness, whenever He— through * the one 
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus "—— 
spiritually heals the sick or raises the dead, that is, justifies 
the ungodly; and after He has brought him to perfect health, 
in other words, to the fulness of life and righteousness. For, 
just as the eye of the body, even when completely sound, is 
unable to see unless aided by the brightness of light, so also 
man, even when most fully justified, is unable to lead a holy 
life, if he be not divinely assisted by the eternal light of 
righteousness. God, therefore, heals us not only that He 


may blot out the sin which we have committed, but, further- | " 


more, that He may enable us even to avoid sinning. 


Cur, 30. [xxvit.]—Sin is removed by sin. 


He no doubt shows some acuteness in handling, and turning 
over and ‘exposing, as he likes, and refuting a certain statement, 
which is made to this effect, that “it was really necessary to 
man, in order to take from him all occasion for pride and 
boasting, that he should be unable to exist without sin.” {In 
answer to this,] he supposes it to be “the height of absurdity 
and folly, that there should have been sin in order that sin 
might not be; inasmuch as pride is itself, of course, a sin.” 
As if a sore were not attended with pain, and an operation 
did not produce pain, that pain might be remedied by pain. 


260 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XXXI. 





If we had not experienced any such treatment, but were only 
to hear about it in some parts of the world where these things 
had never happened, we might perhaps use this man's words, 
and say, It is the height of absurdity that pain should have 
been necessary in order that a sore should have no pain. 

' Cuar. 91.— Te order and process of healing our heavenly Physician does 


not adopt from the sick patient, but derives from Himself. What cause 
the righteous have for fearing. 


* But God,” they say, *is able to heal all things.” It is quite 
true that He so acts as to heal all things; but He acts on His 
own judgment, and does not take His procedure in healing from 
the sick man. For undoubtedly it was His will to endow 
His apostle with very great power and strength, and yet He 
said to him: “My strength is made perfect in weakness ;”* 
nor did He remove from him, though he so often entreated Him 
to do so, that mysterious “thorn in the flesh," which He told 
him had been given to him “lest he should be unduly exalted 
through the abundance of the revelation"? For all other 
sins only prevail in evil deeds; pride only has to be guarded 
against in things that are rightly done. Whence it happens 
that those persons are admonished not to attribute to their 
own power the gifts of God, nor to plume themselves thereon, 
lest by so doing they should perish with a heavier perdition 
than if they had done no good at all, to whom it is said: 
“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it 
is God which worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good 
pleasure"? Why, then, must it be with fear and trembling, 
and not rather with security, since God is working; except it 
be because there so quickly steals over our human soul, by 
reason of our will (without which we can do nothing well), 
the inclination to esteem simply as our own accomplishment 
whatever good we do; and so each one of us says in his 
prosperity: “I shall never be moved?” * Therefore, He who 
in His good pleasure had added strength to our beauty, turns 
away His face, and the man who had made his boast becomes 
troubled, because it is by actual sorrows that the swelling 
pride must be remedied. 


1 2 Cor. xii. 9.* 2,2 Cof. x1. (,.8. 
3 Phil. ii. 12, 18. * PS xxx. 6, 


es 


CHAP. XXXIII] SALUTARY CHASTENING. 261 





Cuap. 32. [xxvim. ]--God forsakes us sometimes that we may not grow proud. 

Therefore it is never said to a man: “It is necessary for 
you to sin that you may not sin;” but it is said to a man: 
God sometimes forsakes you, in consequence of which you 
grow proud, that you may know that you are “not your own,” 
but are His'—and so learn not to be proud. Now even that 
incident in the apostle’s [life, to which we have just referred,] 
is of such a kind, not to say so wonderful, that were it not 
for the fact that he himself is the voucher for it whom it is 
impious to contradict, truthful as he is, it would be incredible. 
For what believer is there who. is ignorant of the fact that the 


| first incentive to sin came from Satan, and that he is the 


primary author of all sins? And yet, for all that, some are 
“delivered over unto Satan, that they may learn not to blas- 
pheme"? How comes it to pass, then, that Satan’s work is 
excluded and prevented by the work of Satan? These and 
such like questions let a man regard in such. a light that they 
seem not to him to be too acute; they have somewhat of the 
sound of acuteness, and yet when discussed are found to be 
obtuse. What must we say also to our authors use of 
similes? But he only thereby rather suggests to us the 
answer which we should give to himself. “ What" (asks he) 
“shall I say more than this, that we may as well believe that 
fires are quenched by fires, if we may believe that sins are cured 
by sins?" What if one cannot put out fires by fires: pains 
can, for all that, as I have shown, be cured by pains.  Poisons 
can also, if one only inquire and learn the fact, be expelled 
by poisons. Now, if he observes that the heats of fevers are 
sometimes subdued by certain medicinal warmths, he will 
perhaps also allow that fires may be extinguished by fires. 

CHAP. 33. [xx1x. ]J—ANot every sin is pride. How pride is the commencement of 

every sin. 

“But how," asks he, “shall we separate pride itself from 
sin?" Now, why does he raise such a question, when it is 
manifest that even pride itself is asin? “To sin,” says he, 
*is quite as much to be proud, as to be proud is to sin; for 
only ask what every sin is, and see whether you can find any 
sin unaccompanied by the designation of pride.” Then he 

41 Cor. vi. 19. 2 1 Tim. 20. 


262 ON NATURE AND GRACE. — [CHAP. XXXIV. 





thus pursues this opinion, and endeavours to prove it thus: 
“Every sin,” says he, “if I mistake not, is a contempt of God, 
_and every contempt of God is pride. For what is so proud 
as to despise God? All sin, then, is also pride, even as Scrip- 
ture says, Pride is the beginning of all sin”! Let him 
seek diligently, and he will find in the law that the sin of 
pride is quite distinguished from all other sins. For many 
sins are committed through pride; but yet not all things 
which are wrongly done are done proudly,—at any rate, not 
by the ignorant, not by the infirm, and not, generally speaking, 
by the weeping and sorrowful. ^ And indeed pride, although 
it be in itself a great sin, is so in itself alone without 
any others; so that, as I have already remarked, it for the 
most part advances with swifter, though still stealthy foot, in 
things which are actually well done, and not so much in sins. 
However, that which he has understood in another sense, is 
after all most truly said: “Pride is the commencement of all 
sin;” because it was this which overthrew the devil, from 
whom arose the origin of sin; and afterwards, when his malice 
and envy pursued man, who was yet Standing in his upright- 
ness, it subverted him in the same way in which he himself 
fell. For the serpent, in fact, only sought for the door of pride 
whereby to enter when he said [to the man and the woman 2 
." Ye shall be as gods"? Truly then is it said, “Pride is the 
commencement of all sin;"? and, “The beginning of pride is 
when a man departeth from God." * 


Cuap. 34, [xxx.] 


Well, but what does he mean when he says: “Then again, 
how shall one be subjected to God for the guilt of that sin, 
which he knows is not his own? For,” says he, “his own 
it cannot be, since it is committed under necessity. Other- 
wise, if it is his own, it proceeds from his will ; and if it is 
voluntary, it may be avoided.” We reply: It is unquestion- 
ably his own. But the fault by which sin is committed is not 
yet in every respect healed, and the fact of its becoming 
permanently fixed in us arises from our not rightly using the 
healing virtue; and so out of this faulty condition the man 
! Ecclus. x. 18. ? Gen. iii, 5. 3 Ecclus. x. 18. * Ecelus. x. 12: 


CHAP. XXXV.] PREVENTING AND SUBSEQUENT GRACE. 263 





who is now growing strong in depravity commits many sins, 
either through infirmity or blindness. Prayer must therefore be 
made for him, that he may be healed, and that he may thence- 
forward attain to a life of uninterrupted soundness of health ; 
nor must pride be indulged in, as if any man were healed 
by the self-same power whereby he became morally diseased. 

Cuap. 35. [xxx1. ]— Why God does not immediately cure pride itself. The secret 

and insidious growth of pride. Preventing and subsequent grace, 

But I would indeed so treat these topics, as to confess 
myself ignorant of God’s deeper counsel, why He does not at 
once heal the very principle of pride, which insidiously over- 
spreads man’s heart; and for the cure of which pious souls, 
with tears and strong crying, beseech Him that He would 
stretch forth His right hand and help their endeavours to 
overcome it, and in a certain sense tread and crush it under 
foot. Now when a man has felt glad that he has even by some 
good work overcome pride, from the very joy he lifts up his 
head and says: Behold, I live; why do you triumph? Nay, I 
live because you triumph. Premature, however, this forward- 
ness of his to triumph over pride may perhaps be, as if it were 
now vanquished, whereas its last shadow is to be absorbed, as 
I suppose, in that noontide which is promised in the scripture 
which says, “He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the 
light, and thy judgment as the noonday ;”* provided that be 
done which was written in the preceding verse: “Commit 
thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall 
bring it to pass,” not, as some suppose, that they themselves 
bring it to pass. Now, when he said, * And He shall bring 
it to pass,” he evidently intended none but those who say, We 
ourselves bring it to pass; that is to say, we are ourselves the 
justifiers of our own selves. No doubt, even where we our- 
selves work, we are fellow-workers with Him who co-operates 
with us, because His mercy prevents us. He prevents us, 
however, that we may be healed; but then He will also 
follow us, that being healed we may grow healthy and strong. 
He prevents us that we may be called; He will follow us 
that we may be glorified. He prevents us that we may lead 
godly lives; He will follow us that we may always live with 


1 Ps, xxxvil. 6. 2 Ps, xxxvil. 5. 


264 | ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XXXVI. 





Him, because without Him we can do nothing! Now the 
Scriptures refer to both these operations of grace. There is 
both this: “The God of my mercy shall prevent me;"? and 
again this: “Thy mercy shall follow me all the days of my 
life"? Let us therefore unveil to Him our life by confession, 
not praise it with a vindication. For if it is not His way 
but our own, beyond doubt it is not the right one. Let us 
therefore reveal this by making our confession to Him; for 
however much we may endeavour to conceal it, it is not hid 
from Him. It is a good thing to confess unto the Lord. 

Cuap. 36. [xxxi ]— There is nothing right without grace. Pride even in such 


things as are done aright must be avoided. Free will is not taken away 
when grace is preached. 


Thus will He bestow on us whatever pleases Him. If there 
be anything displeasing to Him in us, it ought also to be dis- 
pleasing to us. ^ He will" as the Scripture has said, “turn 
aside our paths from His own way; * and will make our 
way that whieh is His own; because it is by Himself that 
the favour is bestowed on such as believe in Him and hope 
in His name, of having their way made by His very self. 
Now there is a way of righteousness of which they are 
ignorant “who have a zeal for God, but not according to 
knowledge,"? and who, wishing to make up a righteousness of 
their own, “have not submitted themselves to the righteous- 
ness of God."* “For Christ is the end of the law for 
righteousness to every one that believeth ;"" and He has said, 
FT am the way."? God's voice, however, has alarmed even 
those who have already begun to walk in this way, lest they 
should be lifted up, as if it were by their own energies that 
they were walking therein. For the same persons to whom 
the apostle, on account of this danger, says, “Work out your 
own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God that 
worketh in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure,"? 
are likewise for the self-same reason admonished in the psalm : 
* Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice in Him with trembling. 
Accept correction, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and ye 

! John xv. 5. t paz In. 10. UPS xxm 


* See Ps. xliv. 18 (Sept.). 5 Rom. x. 2. © hom r5 
7 Rom. x. 4. 8 John xiv. 6. 9 Phil. ii. 12. 


CHAP. XXXVII.] PRIDE TO BE AVOIDED. 265 





perish from the righteous way, when His wrath shall be sud- 
denly kindled upon you.”* He does not say, “Lest at any time 
the Lord be angry and refuse to show you the righteous way,” 
or, “refuse to lead you into the way of righteousness ;” but 
even after you are walking therein, he goes so far in his tone 
of alarm as to say, “Lest ye perish from the righteous way." 
Now, whence could this arise if not from pride, which (as I 
have so often said, and must repeat again and again) has to 
be guarded against even in things which are rightly done, that 
is, in the very way of righteousness, lest a man, by regarding 
as his own that which is really God's, lose what is God's and 
be reduced merely fo what is his own? Let us then carry 
out the concluding’ injunction of this same psalm, “ Blessed 
are all they that trust in Him,"? so that He may Himself 
indeed effect and Himself show His own way in us, to whom 
it is said, *Show us Thy mercy, O Lord;"? and Himself 
bestow on us the pathway of safety that we may walk therein, 
to whom the prayer is offered, “And grant us Thy salva- 
tion;"* and Himself lead us in the self-same way, to whom 
again it is said, “Guide me, O Lord, in Thy way, and in Thy 
truth will I walk ;"? Himself, too, conduct us to those pro- 
mises whither His way leads, to whom it is said, * Even there 
shall Thy hand lead me and Thy right hand shall hold me ;” : 
Himself pasture therein those who sit down with Abraham, 
Isaac, and Jacob, of whom it is said, “He shall make them 
sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them.” te 
Now we do not, when we make mention of these [acts of the | 
Lord,] take away the freedom of man's will, but we preach the 
erace of God. For to whom are those gracious gifts of use, 
but to the man who uses, and humbly uses, his own will, and 
who does not make any boast of the power and energy 
thereof, as if it alone were sufficient for perfecting him in 
righteousness ? 
Cuap. 37. [xxxir. ]— Being wholly without sin does not put man on an equality 
with God. The blessed are not changed into the substance of God. 

God forbid that we should meet him with such an assertion 

as he says certain persons advance against him: “That man 


FP stot, 12. 3 P3512. 3 Ps, lxxxv. 7. 4 Ps. Ixxxv. 7- 
WPs. IxxxvL 1l. 6 Ps, exxxix. 10. 7 Luke xii. 37. 


266 ON NATURE AND GRACE, [CHAP. XXXVIII. 





is placed on a par with God, if he is described as being 
without sin;" as if indeed an angel, because he is without 
sin, is put in such an equality. For my own part, I am of 
opinion that the creature will never become equal with God, 
even when so perfect a holiness shall be accomplished in us, 
that it shall be quite incapable of receiving any addition. No; 
all who maintain that our progress is to be so complete that 
we shall be changed into the substance of God, and that we 
shall thus become what He is, should look well to it how they 
build up their opinion; upon myself I must confess that it 
produces no conviction. 


Cnr. 38. [xxxiv. ]— We must not lie, even for the sake of moderation. The 
praise of humility must not be placed to the account of falsehood. 


I am favourably disposed, indeed, to the view of our author, 
when he resists those who say to him, * What you assert is 
undoubtedly reasonable enough in appearance, but it is an 
arrogant thing to allege that any man can por without sin," 
with this answer, that if it is at all true, it müst not on any 
account be called an arrogant statement, for with very great 
truth and acuteness he asks, * On what side must humility 
be placed? No doubt on the side of falsehcod, if you prove 
arrogance to exist on the side of truth.” And so he decides, 
and rightly decides, that humility should rather be ranged on 
the side of truth, not of falsehood. Whence it follows that 
he who said, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive 
ourselves, and the truth is not in us,"! must without hesita- 
tion be held to have spoken the truth, and not seem to have 
advanced what is false under the guise of humility. There- 
fore he added the words, * And the truth is not in us;" 
whereas it might perhaps have been enough if he merely said, 
* We deceive ourselves," if he had not observed that some were 
capable of supposing that the clause * we.deceive ourselves " is 
here employed on the ground that the man who praises himself 
is even extolled for a really good action. So that, by the addi- 
tion of “the truth is not in us," he clearly shows (even as 
our author most correctly observes) that it is not at all true if 
we say that we have no sin, lest humility, if placed on the side 
of falsehood, should lose the praise and guerdon of truth. 

11 John i. 8. 


CHAP. XL] GOD IS SAVIOUR AS WELL AS CREATOR. 267 








Cuap. 39. 

Beyond this, however, although he flatters himself that he 
vindicates the cause of God by defending nature, he forgets that 
by predicating soundness of the said nature, he rejects the 
Physician’s mercy. He, however, who created him is also 
his Saviour. We ought not, therefore, so to magnify the Creator 
as to be under the necessity, nay, rather incur the guilt, of 
declaring the Saviour to be superfluous. Man's nature indeed 
we may honour with distinguished praise, and attribute the 
praise to the Creator's glory ; but at the same time, while we 
show our gratitude to Him for having created us, let us not 
be ungrateful to Him for healing us. Our sins which He 
heals we must undoubtedly attribute not to God’s operation, 
but to the wilfulness of man, and submit them to His 
righteous correction ; as, however, we acknowledge that it was 
in our power that they should not be committed, so let us 
confess that it lies in His mercy rather than in our own power 
that they should be healed. But this mercy and remedial 
help of the Saviour, according to this writer, consists only in 
this, that He forgives the transgressions that are past, not that 
He helps us to avoid such as are to come. Here he is most 
fatally mistaken ; here, however unwittingly, he hinders us 
from being watchful, and from praying that “we enter not 
into temptation,’ since he maintains that it simply lies 
without our own control that this should not happen to us. 
Cuap. 40. [xxxv.]-- Why there is a record in Scripture of certain men’s sins. 

Recklessness in sins accounts it to be so much loss whenever it falls short in 

gratifying the instigation of lust. 

The man who is endowed with a sound opinion does not 
say [what our author says,] “That the instances of certain 
persons, of whose sinning we read in Scripture, are recorded 
for this purpose, that they may discourage recklessness in 
sinning, nor seem in any way to afford to us security in 
commiting sin,’—but that we may learn the humility of 
repentance, or else discover that even in such falls salvation 
ought not to be despaired of. For there are some who, when 
they have fallen into sin, perish rather from the recklessness 
of despair, and not only neglect the remedy of repentance, but 
become the slaves of lusts and wicked desires, so far as to run 


268 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XLII. 





all lengths in gratifying these depraved and abandoned dis- 
positions,—as if it were a loss to them if they failed to 
accomplish what their lust impelled them to, whereas all the 
while there awaits them a certain condemnation. To oppose 
this morbid recklessness, which is only too full of danger and 
ruin, there is great force in the record of those sins into which 
even just and holy men have before now fallen. 

Cuap. 41.— Whether holy men have died without sin. Forgiveness of sins like 

a daily incense. No man can live, though he may die, without sin. 

But there is clearly much acuteness in the question put by 
our author, “How must we suppose that those holy men 
quitted this life——with sin, or without sin?” For if we 
answer, “ With sin,” condemnation will be supposed to have 
been their destiny, which it is shocking to imagine; but if it 
be said that they departed this life * without sin," then it 
would be a proof that man had been without sin in his 
present life, at all events, when death was approaching. But, 
with all his acuteness, he overlooks the circumstance that 
even righteous persons not without good reason offer up this 
prayer: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors ;"! 
and that the Lord [Jesus] Christ, after explaining the prayer 
in His teaching, most truly added: “For if ye forgive men 
their trespasses, your [heavenly] Father will also forgive you 
your trespasses."? Here, indeed, we have the daily incense, 
so to speak, of the Spirit, which is offered to God on the altar 
of the heart, which we are bidden “to lift up [unto the 
Lord,|”—implying that, even if we cannot live here without 
sin, we may yet die without sin, whilst the sin is blotted out 
in merciful forgiveness which is committed in ignorance or 
infirmity. 

Cuap. 42. [xxxv1.]— The blessed Virgin Mary lived without sin. None of the 


saints besides her without sin. The praise of humility is not to be placed on 
the side of falsehood. 


He then enumerates those “who not only lived without 
sin, but are described as having led holy lives——Abel, Enoch, 
Melchizedek, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joshua the son of Nun, 
Phinehas, Samuel, Nathan, Elijah, Joseph, Elisha, Micaiah, 
Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, Mordecai, Simeon, Joseph 

1 Matt. vi. 12. 3 Matt. vi. 14. 


CHAP. XLIIL] — THE SAINTS NOT WITHOUT SIN. 269 





the husband of the Virgin Mary, and John.” And he adds 
the names of some women,—* Deborah, Hannah the mother of 
Samuel, Judith, Esther, the other Anna, daughter of Phanuel, 
Elisabeth, and even the mother of our Lord and Saviour, for 
of her," he says, “we must needs allow that her piety had no 
sin in it.” We must except the holy Virgin Mary, concerning 
whom I wish to raise no question, when it touches the sub- 
ject of sins, out of honour to the Lord; for from Him we 
know what abundance of grace for overcoming sin in every 
particular was conferred upon her who had the merit to 
conceive and bear Him who undoubtedly had no sin. Well, 
then, if, with this exception of the Virgin, we could only 
assemble together all the forementioned holy men and 
women, and ask them whether they lived without sin whilst 
they were in this life, what can we suppose would be their 
answer? Would it be in the language of our author, or in the 
words of the Apostle John? I put it to you, whether, on 
having such a question submitted to them, however excellent 
might have been their sanctity in this body, they would not 
have exclaimed with one voice: “If we say we have no sin, 
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us?"! But 
perhaps in this their answer would have shown more of 
humility than of truth! Well, but our author has already 
determined, and rightly determined, * not to place the praise 
of humility on the side of falsehood." If, therefore, they spoke 
the truth in giving such an answer, they would have sin, and 
since they humbly acknowledged it, the truth would be in 
them; but if they lied in their answer, they would still have 
sin, because the truth would not be in them. 


Cuap, 43. [xxxvir.] 


* But perhaps, says he, *they will ask me: Could not 
the Scripture have mentioned some sins belonging to all of 
them?” And surely they would say the truth, whoever 
should put such a question to him; and I do not discover 
that he has anywhere given a sound reply to them, although 
I perceive that he was unwilling to let the question pass 
without an answer. What this is, I beg of you to observe: 

1] John i. 8. 








270 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XLIV. 





“This,” says he, “might be rightly asked of those whom 

Scripture mentions neither as good nor as bad; but of those 
whose holiness it mentions, it would also no doubt have 
mentioned the sins likewise, if only it had known that they 
had sinned at all” He would say, forsooth, that their grand 
faith had no connection with holiness in the case of those 
who comprised *the multitudes that went before and that 
followed” the colt on which the Lord rode, when “they 
shouted and said, Hosanna to the Son of. David: Blessed is 
He that cometh in the name of the Lord,"! even amidst the 
malignant men who with murmurs asked why they were 
doing all this! Let him then boldly tell us, if he can, that 
there was not a man in all that vast crowd who had any sin 
at all. Now, if it is most absurd to make such a statement 
as this, why has not the Scripture mentioned any sins in the 
persons to whom reference has been made, especially when 
it has carefully recorded the eminent goodness of their faith ? 


Crap. 44. 


This, however, even he probably observed, and therefore 
he went on to say: “But, granted that it has sometimes 
abstained, in the instance of a numerous crowd, from nar- 
rating the sins of all that composed it; still, in the very 
beginning of the world, when there were only four persons in 
existence, what reason (asks he) have we to give why it chose 
not to mention the sins of all [that small number?] Was 
it in consideration of the vast multitude, which had not yet 
come into existence? or because, having mentioned only the 
sins of those who had transgressed, it was unable to record 
any of him who had not yet committed sin?” And then 
he proceeds to add some words, in which he unfolds this 
idea with a fuller and more explicit illustration. “It is 
certain,’ says he, “that in the earliest age Adam and Eve, 
and Cain and Abel their sons, are mentioned as being the 
only four persons then in being. Eve sinned,—the Scripture 
distinctly says so much; Adam also transgressed, as the 
same Scripture does not fail to inform us; whilst it affords 
us an equally clear testimony that Cain also sinned: and of 

! Matt. xxi. 9. 





CHAP. XLV.] FALSE INFERENCES FROM SCRIPTURE OMISSIONS. 271 





all these it not only mentions the sins, but also indicates the 
character of their sins. Now if Abel had likewise sinned, 
Scripture would no doubt have told us so. But it has 
given us no such information; therefore he committed no 
sin, and not only so, but proved himself, and the Scripture 
moreover shows him, to have been a righteous man. What 
we read, therefore, let us believe; and what we do not read, 
let us deem it impious to affirm.” 

Cuap. 45. [xxxvii ]— Why Cain has been by some thought to have had children 


by his mother Eve. The sins of righteous men. Who can be both righteous, 
and yet not without sin. 


When he says this, he forgets what he had himself said 
not long before: “After the human race had multiplied, it 
was possible that in the crowd the Scripture may have 
neglected to notice the sins of all men.” If indeed he had 
borne this well in mind, he would have seen that even in 
one man there was such a crowd and so vast a number of 
slight sins, that it would have been impossible (or, even if 
possible, improper) to describe them. Those only are re- 
corded which required some method and consideration to be 
applied in their selection, that they might serve, in their 
limited number, as examples for instructing the reader in the 
many cases where he needed warning. Scripture has indeed 
omitted to mention concerning the few persons who were. 
then in existence, either their numbers or their characters,’— 
in other words, how many sons and daughters Adam and Eve 
begat, and what names they gave them; and from this cir- 
cumstance some, not considering how many things are quietly 
passed over in Scripture, have gone so far as to suppose that 
Cain cohabited with his mother, and by her had the children 
which are mentioned, thinking that Adam's sons had no 
sisters, because Scripture failed to mention them in the 
particular place, although it afterwards, in the way of re- 
capitulation, implied what it had previously omitted, —that 
«Adam begat sons and daughters,"? without, however, drop- 
ping a syllable to intimate either their number or the time 


1 [We have thus combined the two possible meanings of *' quinetiam justum 
ostendit." See 1 John iii. 12. ] 
2 Quot vel qui fuerint. 3 Gen. v. 4. 


272 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. XLY. 





when they were born. In like manner it was unnecessary 
to state whether Abel, notwithstanding that he is rightly 
styled *righteous," ever indulged in immoderate laughter, or 
was ever jocose in moments of relaxation, or ever looked at 
an object with a covetous eye, or ever plucked fruit to ex- 
travagance, or ever suffered indigestion from too much eating, 
or ever in the midst of his prayers permitted his thoughts. to 
wander, and call him away from the purpose of his devotion ; 
and [much more uncalled for still was it to state] how fre- 
quently these and many other similar failings stealthily crept 
over his mind. And are not these failings sens, about which 
the apostle’s precept gives us a general admonition that we 
should avoid and restrain them, when he says: “Let not sin 
therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it 
in the lusts thereof?"! To escape from such an obedience, 
we have to struggle in a constant and daily conflict against 
unlawful and unseemly inclinations. Only let the eye be 
directed, or rather abandoned, to an object which it ought to 
avoid, and let the mischief strengthen and get the mastery, 
and adultery is consummated in the body, which is expedited 
in the heart only more quickly, as thought is more rapid 
than action, and there is no impediment to retard and delay 
it. They who in a great degree have curbed this sin, that 
_is, this appetite of a vitiated affection, so as not to obey its 
desires, nor to “yield their members to it as instruments of 
unrighteousness,"? have fairly deserved to be called righteous 
persons, and this by the help of the grace of God. Since, 
however, sin often stole over them in very small matters, 
and when they were off their guard, they were both righteous, 
and at the same time not sinless. — To conclude, even if there 
were yet in righteous Abel that love of God, whereby alone 
the righteous man has true holiness, to enable him to advance 
in holiness and to lay him under a moral obligation to such 
progress, still, in whatever degree he fell short therein, it 
came from his own fault. And who indeed can help thus 
falling short, until he come to that mighty power thereof, in 
which man's entire infirmity shall be swallowed up ? 


! Rom. vi. 12. ? Rom. vi. 18. 





CHAP. XLVII.] ADHERENCE TO WHAT IS WRITTEN. 273 





Cuap. 46. [xxxix.] 

It is, to be sure, a grand sentence with which he con- 
cluded this passage, when he says: * What we read, therefore, 
let us believe; and what we do not read, let us deem it 
impious to affirm,—which it is sufficient to remark also of 
every case.” On the contrary, I for my part say that we 
ought not to believe even everything that we read, [and this 
I say] on the sanction of the apostle’s advice: “Read all 
things; hold fast that which is good." ! Nor is it an impious 
thing to affirm anything which we have not read; for it is 
in our power to affirm anything which we have bond fide 
experienced as witnesses, even if it so happens that we have 
not read about it. Perhaps he will say in reply: “ When I 
said this, I was treating of the Holy Scriptures" Oh how I 
wish that he were never willing to affirm, I will not say 
anything but what he reads in the Scriptures, but in opposi- 
tion to what he reads in them ; that he would only faithfully 
and obediently hear that which is written there: “ By one 
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so 
death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned;"? and 
that he would not weaken the grace of the great Physician, 
—all by his unwillingness to confess that human nature is 
vitiated! Oh how I wish that he would, as a Christian, read 
the sentence, “ There is none other name under heaven 
given among men whereby we must be saved ;" ? and that he 
would not so uphold the capability of human mature, as to 
believe that man can possibly be saved by his own free will 
without that Name ! 


Cuap. 47. [xr.]—For what Pelagius thought that Christ is necessary to us. 


Perhaps, however, he thinks the name of Christ to be 
necessary on this account, that by means of His gospel we 
may learn how we ought to live; but not that we may be 
also assisted by His grace, in order withal to lead good lives. 
Well, even this consideration should lead him at least to 
confess that there is a miserable darkness in the human 
mind, which knows how it ought to tame a lion, but. knows 
not how to live. To know this, too, is it enough for us to 

11 Thess. v. 21. ? Rom. v. 12. 3 Acts iv. 12. 

4 S 


274 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [ CHAP. XLVIII. 
have a free will and the law of nature? This is that word- 
wisdom, whereby “the cross of Christ is rendered of none 
effect.” He, however, who said, “I will destroy the wisdom 
of the prudent,'? since that cross cannot be made of none 
effect in very deed, overthrows the wisdom of the prudent 
by that foolishness of preaching whereby believers are healed 
[of their sinful malady.] For if natural capacity, by help of 
free will, is in itself sufficient both for discovering how one 
ought to live, and also for leading a holy life, then “ Christ 
died in vain,"? and therefore also “the offence of the cross 
is ceased.”* Why also may I not myself exclaim,—nay, I 
will exclaim, and chide them with a Christian’s sorrow,—— 
“Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you 
are justified by nature; ye are fallen from grace;”° for, 
“being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and wishing to 
establish your own righteousness, you have not submitted 
yourselves to the righteousness of God?”° For even as 
“Christ is the end of the law,’ so likewise is He the 
Saviour of man’s corrupted nature, * for righteousness to 
every one that believeth.” ? 
Cuap. 48. [xr1.]— How the term ** all" is to be understood. 

His opponents adduced the passage, “All have sinned,” ® 
and he met their statement founded on this with the remark 
that “the apostle was manifestly speaking of the then existing 
generation, that is, the Jews and the Gentiles;” but surely 
the passage which I have quoted, “ By one man sin entered 
the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all 
men, in that all have sinned,"? embraces in its terms the 
generations both of old and of modern times, both ourselves 
and our posterity. He quotes, * As by the offence of one, 
[judgment came] upon all men to condemnation, even so by 
the righteousness of One, [the free gift came] upon all men 
unto justification of life"? and thus remarks: “There can be 
no doubt that not all men are sanctified by the righteousness 
of Christ, but only those who are willing to obey Him, and 
have been cleansed in the washing of His baptism.” Well, 





Lor L 17. 3T Cor. i. 10. 3 Ga]. ii. 21. 4 Ga]. v. 11. 
5 Gal. v. 4. 6 Rom. x. 3. 7 Rom. x. 4, * Rom. iii. 23. 
9 Rom. v. 12. 10 Rom. v. 18. 





CHAP. XLIX.] IS A STATE OF SINLESSNESS POSSIBLE ? 275 





but he does not prove what he wants by this quotation. For 
as the clause, “ By the offence of one, [judgment came] upon 
all men to condemnation,” is so worded that not one is omitted 
in its sense, so in the corresponding clause, “By the righteous- 
ness of one, [the free gift came] upon all men unto justification 
of life,” there is a like fulness of meaning which omits none— 
not, indeed, because all men have faith and are washed in His 
" baptism, but because no man is justified unless he believes in 
Christ and is cleansed by His baptism. The term “all” is 
therefore used in a way which shows that no one whatever 
can be supposed able to be saved by any other means than 
through Christ Himself. For if in a city there be appointed 
but one instructor, we are most correct in saying: That man 
teaches all in that place; not meaning, indeed, that all who 
live in the city take lessons of him, but that no one is in- 
structed unless taught by him. In like manner no one is 
justified unless Christ has justified him. 
Cuap. 49. [xr1r.]—4 man can be sinless, but only by the help of grace. In the 
saints this possibility advances and keeps pace with the realization. 
“Well, be it so,’ says he, “I agree; he testifies to the fact 
that all were sinners. He says, indeed, what they have been, 
not that they might not have been something else. Where- 
fore," he adds, “if all men could be proved to be sinners, it 
would not by any means prejudice our own definite position, 
in insisting not so much on what men are, as on what they 
are capable of being.” He is right for once to allow that no . 
man living is justified in God’s sight. He contends, however, 
that this is not the question in the passage before us, but that 
the point lies in the possibility of a man’s not sinning,—on 
which subject it is unnecessary even for ourselves to take 
eround against him; for, in truth, I do not much care about 
expressing a definite opinion on the question, whether in the 
present life there ever have been, or now are, or ever can be, 
any persons who have had, or are having, or are to have, the 
love of God so perfectly as to admit of no addition to it (for 
nothing short of this amounts to a most true, plenary, and 
perfect righteousness). The point which I aver and maintain 
concerns the ability of man’s will,—what it can do when 


1 Compare De Peccatorum meritis et remissione, i. 55. 


276 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. L. 





assisted by the grace of God. As to the incidental questions 
of time and place, and the person who is to accomplish the 
doing, I am not bound to bestow any great pains in discussing 
them. Nor do I indeed contend about the actual possibility, 
forasmuch as the possibility under dispute advances with the 
realization in all holy persons, their human will being duly 
healed and helped [by divine grace;] whilst “the love of 
God,” as fully as our sound and cleansed nature can possibly 
receive it, “is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, 
which is given to us"! In a better way, therefore, is God's 
cause promoted (and it is to its promotion that our author 
professes to apply his warm defence of nature) when He is 
acknowledged as our Saviour no less than as our Creator, than 
when His succour to us as Saviour is impaired and dwarfed 
to nothing by the defence of the creature, as if it were sound 
and its resources entire. 


Cuap. 50. [xu111.]}—God commands no impossibilities. 

What he says, however, is true enough, “that God is so 
good and just, that He made man of such a nature as to be 
quite able to live without the evil of sin, if indeed he had 
been only willing.” For who does not know that man was 
made whole and faultless, and endowed with a free will and 
a power at liberty to lead a holy life? Our present inquiry, 
however, is about the man whom “the thieves"? left half 
dead on the road, and who, being disabled and pierced through 
with heavy wounds, is quite incapable of mounting up to the 
heights of holiness with the facility wherewith he was able 
to descend therefrom; who, moreover, is stil in process of 
cure, even though he is already in “the inn"? God there- 
fore does not enjoin impossibilities; but in His injunctions 
He counsels you both to do what you can for yourself, and to 
ask His aid in what you cannot do. Now, we should see 
whence comes the possibility, and whence the impossibility. 
He says: “That proceeds not from a man’s will which he can 
do by nature.” I say: A man is not righteous by his will if 
he can be by nature. He will, however, be able to accomplish 


1 Rom. v. 5. ? Luke x. 30. [Rather, **robbers;" latrones, Azeceí.] 
3 Luke x. 34. 


CHAP. LII.] FAITH IN CHRIST INDISPENSABLE. 277 





by remedial aid what he is rendered incapable of doing by the 

fault [of his nature. ] 

Cuap. 51. [xuiv.]}—State of the question between the Pelagians and the Catholics. 
Holy men of old saved by the self-same faith in Christ which we exercise. 
But why need we tarry longer on general statements? Let 

us go into the core of the question, which we have to discuss 

with our opponents solely, or almost entirely, on one parti- 
cular point. For inasmuch as he says that ^as far as the 
present question is concerned, it is not pertinent to inquire 
whether there have been or now are any men in this life 

' without sin, but whether there could ever have been or still 

could be such persons ;” so, were I even to allow that there 

have been or are any sueh, I should not by any means 

therefore affirm the past or the present possibility [of any . 

men being sinless,| unless justified by the grace of God 

through our Lord “Jesus Christ and Him crucified"! For 
the same faith which healed the saints of old now heals us,— 
that is to say, faith *in the one Mediator between God and 
men, the man Christ Jesus,"?—-faith in His blood, faith in 

His cross, faith in His death and resurrection. As we there- 

fore have the same spirit of faith, we also believe, and on that 

account also speak. 
Cup. 52. 

Let us, however, observe what our author answers, after 
laying before himself the question wherein he seems indeed 
so intolerable to Christian hearts. He says: “But you will 
tell me this is what moves a great many,—the fact that you 
do not Tainted, that it is by the grace of God that a man can 
be without sin.” Certainly this is what causes us. disturb- 
ance; this is what we object to him. He touches the very 
gist a the case. This is what causes us such utter pain to 
EE it; this is why we cannot bear to have such points de- 
bated by Christians, owing to the love which we feel towards 
others and towards themselves. Well, let us hear how he 
clears himself from the objectionable character of the question 
he has raised. * What-blindness of ignorance," he exclaims, 
* what sluggishness of an mE mind, which supposes 
that that is maintained and held to be without God's grace 

Ed 2G0t, 31.2. ? ] Tim. ii. 5. 


278 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LIII. 





which it merely hears ought to be attributed to God!” Now, 
if we knew nothing of what follows this outburst of his, and 
formed our opinion on simply hearing these words, we might 
suppose that we had been led to a wrong view of our oppo- 
nents by the recklessness of report and by the asseveration of 
some competent witnesses among the brethren. For how 
could it have been more pointedly and truly stated that the 
possibility of men's not sinning, to whatever extent it exists 
or shall exist, ought only to be attributed to [the grace of] 
God? This too is our own affirmation. We may shake 
hands. 2209 
Cuap. 58. [xrv.] 

Well, must we listen to the rest of the sentence? Yes, 
certainly ; both hear it, and of course correct it and guard 
against it. These are his words: “Now, when it is said that 
the very possibility in dispute is not at all within the com- 
petence of man’s will, but of the Author of nature,—that is, 
God,—how can that possibly be understood to be without the 
grace of God which is deemed to belong to Him in so especial 
a manner?" Here we begin to see what he means; but that 
we may not lie under any mistake, he explains himself with 
greater breadth and clearness: “That this may become still 
plainer, we must," says he, *enter on a somewhat fuller dis- 
cussion of the point. Now we affirm that the possibility of 
anything les not so much in the power of a man’s will as in 
the necessity of nature.” He then proceeds to illustrate his 
meaning by examples and similes. “Take,” says he, “for 
instance, my ability to speak. That I am able to speak is 
not my own; but that I do speak is my own,—that is, it pro- 
ceeds from my own will. And because the act of my speaking 
is my own, I have the power of resorting to either alternative, 
—that is to say, I am able either to speak or to refrain from 
speaking. But as my being able to speak is not my own,—in 
other words, does not proceed from my own will and pleasure, 
—this capability of speech at all times is a matter of neces- 
sity, [not of volition,] to me; and if I wished to be unable to 
. ! Necesse est me semper loqui posse, This obscure sentence seems to point to 


Pelagius’ former statement: Cujusque rei possibilitatem non tam in arbitrii 
humani potestate quam in nature necessitate consistere. 





CHAP. LV.] NECESSITY, AND FREEDOM OF WILL. 279 








speak, I still have no power to secure such inability to myself, 
unless perhaps I were to deprive myself of that member 
whereby the function of speaking is to be performed.” Many 
means, indeed, might be mentioned whereby, if he wish it, a 
man may deprive himself of the ability to speak, without re- 
moving the organ of speech. If, for instance, anything were 
to happen to a man to destroy his voice, he would be unable 
to speak, although the proper organ remained; for a man's 
voice is of course no organic part of his body. There may, in 
short, be an injury done to the organ internally, short of the 
actual loss of it. I am, however, unwilling to press the argu- 
ment for a word; and it may be replied to me in the contest, 
Why, even to injure [an organ of our body] is to lose the use 
of it. But yet we can so contrive matters, by closing and 
shutting the mouth with bandages, as to be quite unable to 
open it, and, [what 1s more,] to put the opening of it out of 
our power, although it was quite in our own competency to 
shut it while the strength and healthy exercise of the limbs 
remained. 

Cuap. 54. [xLvi. ]— There is no incompatibility between necessity and the 

freedom of our will. 

Now how does all this apply to our subject? Let us see 
what he makes out of it. ‘“ Whatever, says he, “is bound by | 
natural necessity is deprived of all freedom of will and de- | 
liberate choice.” Well, now, here hes a question; for it is | 
the height of absurdity for us to say that it is no concern of. 
our will when we form a wish to be happy, on the ground that 
it is absolutely impossible for us to be unwilling to be happy, 
by reason of some indescribable but amiable coercion of our 
nature; nor dare we maintain that God wills not to be holy, 
but is under the necessity of being so, because He cannot be 
willing to sin. 

Cuap. 55. [xrvir.] 

Mark also what follows. “We may perceive,” says he, “ the 
same thing to be true of hearing, smelling, and seeing, —that 
to hear, and to smell, and to see is our own, while the capacity 
to hear, and to smell, and to see is not our own, but lies in 
a natural necessity.” Either I do not understand what he 
means, or he does not himself. For how is the capacity to see 


280 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LVI. 





not in our own power, if the necessity of not seeing is in our 
own power; because blindness is in our own power, by which 
we can deprive ourselves, if we will, of this very capacity to 
see? How, moreover, is it in our own power to see whenever 
we will, when, without any loss whatever to our natural struc- 
ture of body in the organ of sight, we are unable, even though 
we wish, to see,——either by the removal of all external lights 
during the night, or by our being shut up in some dark place? 
Likewise, if our capacity or our incapacity to hear is not in 
our own power, but lies in the necessity of nature, whereas 
our actual hearing or not hearing is within the competency of 
our own will, how comes it that he is inattentive to the fact 
that there are so many things which we hear against our will, 
which penetrate our sense even when our ears are stopped, 
as the creaking of a saw near to us, or the grunt of a pig? 
Although the said stopping of our ears shows plainly enough 
that it does not lie within our own power not to hear with 
open ears; perhaps, too, such a stopping of our ears as shall 
deprive us of the entire sense in question proves that even 
the ability not to hear lies within our own power. As to his 
remarks, again, concerning our sense of smell, does he not dis- 
play no little carelessness when he says “that it is not in our 
own power to be able or to be unable to smell, but that it 
is in our own power "—that is to say, it lies within the com- 
petency of our own will—* to smell or not to smell?” For 
let us suppose some one to place us, with our hands firmly 
tied, but yet without any injury to our olfactory organs, among 
some bad and noxious smells; in such a case we altogether 
lose the power, however strong may be our wish not to smell, 
because every time we are obliged to draw breath, we also 
inhale the smell which we dislike. 
Cuap. 56. [xivii1.]}—The assistance of grace in a perfect nature. 

Not only, then, are these similes employed by our author 
false, but the application also which he has made of them is 
equally incorrect. He goes on to say: “In like manner, 
touching the possibility of our not sinning, we must under- 
stand that it is ours not to sin, but yet that the ability to 
avoid sin is not ours" If he were speaking of man’s whole 
and perfect nature, which we do not yet possess,—“ for we are 


CHAP. LVII.] GOD CANNOT SIN. 281 





saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: [for what a 
man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?] But if we hope for 
that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it," — 
his language even in that case would not be correct, to the 
effect that (however true it might be that it would be in our 
power to sin) to avoid sinning would be simply in our own 
control; for even then there must be the. help of God, which 
must shed itself on those who are willing to receive it, just 
as the light is given to strong and healthy eyes to assist them 
in their function of sight. Inasmuch, however, as it is about 
this present life of ours that he raises the question, wherein our 
corruptible body weighs down the soul, and our earthly taber- 
nacle depresses our sense with all its many thoughts, I am 
astonished that he can with any heart suppose that, even 
without the help of our Saviour's healing balm, it is in our own 
power to avoid sin, and at the same time ascribe the capacity 
to do so to nature, which gives only stronger evidence of its 
own vitiated state by the very fact of its failing to see its taint. 
Cuap. 57. [xrix. ]—4£ does not detract from God's almighty power, that He is 
incapable of either sinning, or dying, or destroying Himself. 

* Inasmuch," says he, “as not to sin is ours, [it follows that] 
we are able to sin and to avoid sin.” What, then, if another 
should say: Because it belongs to us not to wish for unhappi- 
ness, [it follows that] we are able both to wish for it and 
not to wish for it; while yet we are positively unable to 
wish for it? For who could possibly wish to be unhappy, 
even if he wishes for something else from which unhappiness 
would ensue to him even against his will? Then again, since, 
in an infinitely greater degree, it appertains to God not to sin, 
shall we therefore venture to say that He is able both to sin 
and to avoid sin? God forbid that we should ever say that 
He is able to sin! For He cannot, as foolish persons suppose, 
therefore fail to be almighty, because He is unable to die, or 
because He cannot deny Himself. What, therefore, does he 
mean? by what method of speech does he try to persuade us 
on a point which he is himself loth to consider? For he 
advances a step further, and says: “Since indeed it does not 
appertain to us to be able to avoid sin, even if we were to wish 

1 Rom, viii. 24, 25. 


282 ON NATURE AND GRACE. — . [CHAP. LVI. 





not to be able to avoid sin, itis not in our power to be unable 
to avoid sin." It is an involved sentence, and therefore a very 
~ obscure one. It might, however, be more plainly expressed in 
some such way as this: Since to be able to avoid sin does not 
appertain to us, then, whether it be with our will or without 
our will, we are able to avoid sin! .He does not say, whether 
with our will or without our will, we do not sin,—for we un- 
doubtedly do sin, if we will, —but yet he asserts that, whether 
we will or not, we have the capacity of not sinning,—a capacity 
which he declares to be inherent in our nature. Of a man, 
indeed, who has his legs strong and sound, it may be said 
admissibly enough, that whether he will or not he has the 
power or capacity of walking; but if his legs be broken, he 
has not the capacity or ability, however much he may wish to 
walk. The nature of which our author speaks is vitiated. 
“Why is earth and ashes proud ?"! It is vitiated, [I say.] 
It implores the Physician’s help. “Save me, O Lord,”? is its 
cry; “Heal my soul"? it exclaims. Why does he check such 
cries so as to hinder future health, by insisting as it were on 
its present possibility ? 
Crar. 58. [r. ]—£Even pious and God-fearing men resist grace. 

Observe also what remark he adds, by which he thinks that 
his position is confirmed : * No effort of will" says he, * can 
take away that which is proved to be inseparably implanted 
in nature.” Whence then comes that utterance: “So then 
ye cannot do the things that ye would ?”* Whence also this: 
* For what good I would, that I do not; but what evil I hate, 
that do I?"? Where is that capability which is proved to 
be so inseparably implanted in nature? See, it is human 
beings who do not what they will; and it is about not sinning 
that he was treating, of course, —not about not flying, because 
it was men, not birds, that formed his subject.  Behold, it is 
man who does not the good which he would, but does the 
evil which he hates: *to will is present with him, but how 
to perform that which is good he finds himself unable." 
Where, [I ask again,] is the capability which is shown to be 
so inseparably inherent in nature? It is certain that the 


1 Ecclus. x. 9. 2 Ps. xii. 1. 3 Ps. xli. 4. 
* Gal. v. 17. 5 Rom. vii. 15. 6 Rom. vii. 18. 





go 


CHAP. LIX.] THE CAPACITY OF NOT SINNING. .283 





apostle does not speak of his own mere self, but to his own 
person attributes a general character, man being the object thus 
assumed by him. Dy our author, however, it is maintained 
that our human nature actually possesses as an inseparable 
attribute the capacity of not sinning. Such a statement, how- 
ever, even when made by a man who knows not the effect of 
his words (but this ignorance is hardly attributable to the man 
who suggests the propriety of such statements even for un- 
wary, though God-fearing men), causes the grace of Christ to 
be “made of none effect," when it is pretended that human’ 
nature is self-sufficient for its own holiness and justification. 
CuaAr. 59. [Lr. ]—75 what sense Pelagius attributed to God's grace the 
capacity of not sinning. 

In order, however, to escape from the odium which arises 
in consequence of the jealousy wherewith Christians guard 
everything affecting their salvation, he parries their question 
when they ask him, * Why do you affirm that man without _ 
the help of God's grace is able to avoid sin ?" by saying, “The | 
actual capability of not sinning lies not so much in the power 
of man’s will as in the necessity of his nature. Now, whatever 
is placed in the necessity of nature undoubtedly appertains to 
the Author of that nature, that is, God. How then,” says he, 
“can that be regarded as done without the grace of God which 
is shown to belong in an especial manner to God?” We have 
here expressed the opinion which all along was kept in the 
background; there is, in fact, no way of permanently con- 
cealing such a doctrine. The reason why he attributes to 
the grace of God the capacity of not sinning is, that God is 
the Author of that nature in which he declares this capacity 
of avoiding sin to be inseparably inherent. Whenever He wills 
a thing, no doubt He does it; and what He wills not, that He 
does not. Now, wherever there is this inseparable capability, 
there cannot accrue any infirmity of the will; or rather, there 
cannot be both a readiness of the will and a failure in the 
* performance"? This, then, being the case, how comes it 
to pass that “to will is present, where how to perform that 


11 Qor.i 17. Another reading has crux Christi instead of ** Christi gratia,” 
thus closely adopting the apostle’s words. 
2 Rom. vii. 18. 


284 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LX. 





which is good” is absent? Now, if the author of the work 
we are discussing spoke of that nature of man, which was in 
the beginning created faultless and perfect, in whatever sense 
his dictum be taken, “that it has an inseparable capacity,’— 
that is, so to say, a capability which cannot be lost,—then 
that nature ought not to have been mentioned at all which 
admitted of deterioration, and which could require a physician 
to restore sight to the blind, and that possibility of seeing 
which had been lost through blindness ;— for I suppose a 
blind man would like to see, but is unable. Now, whenever 
a man wishes to do a thing and cannot, there is present to 
him the will, but he has lost the capability. 


Cuap. 60. [L11. ] 


See what obstacles he still attempts to break through, if 
possible, in order to introduce his own opinion. He raises 
a question for himself in these terms: “ But you will tell me 
that, according to the apostle, the flesh is contrary! to us;” - 
and then answers it in this wise: “ How can it be that in the 
case of any baptized person the flesh is contrary to him, when 
according to the same apostle he is understood not to be in 
the flesh? For he says, ‘But ye are not in the flesh"? 
Very well; we shall soon see? whether it be really true 
that [the apostle] says that in the baptized the flesh cannot 
be contrary to them; at present, however, as it was impossible 
for him quite to forget that he was a Christian (although his 
reminiscence on the point is but slight) he has quitted his 
defence of nature. Where then is that inseparable capability 
of his? Does he mean that those who are not yet baptized 
are not a part of human nature? Well, now, here by all 
means, here at this point, he might find his opportunity of 
awaking out of his sleep; and he still has it if he is careful. 
“How can it be,’ he asks, “that in the case of a baptized 
person the flesh is contrary to him?” Then [it seems] to 
the unbaptized the flesh is contrary. Let him tell us how, 
because even in the case of these the resources of nature have 
been stoutly maintained by him. However, in these he does 
allow that nature is vitiated, inasmuch as it was actually 

* Gal y. 17, ? Rom. viii. 9. ? In the next chapter. 


CHAP. LXL] IN WHOM IS THE FLESH CONTRARY ? 285 





among the already baptized that the wounded traveller left 
his inn sound and well, or rather remains sound in the inn 
whither the compassionate Samaritan carried him that he 
might become cured! Well, now, if he allows the contrari- 
ousness of the flesh even in these, let him tell us what has 
happened to occasion this, since the flesh and the spirit alike 
are the work of one and the same Creator, and are therefore 
both of them good, because He is good. What indeed is it 
except the flaw which has been inflicted by man’s own wil- 
fulness? And that this fault of our nature may be repaired, 
there is need of that very Saviour from whose creative hand 
nature itself proceeded. Now, if we acknowledge that this 
Saviour, and that healing remedy of His which made the — 
Word inearnate in order to dwell within us, are required 
by small and great,—by the crying infant and the hoary- 
headed man alike,—then, in fact, the whole controversy of 
the point between us is settled at once and for ever. 


Cuap. 61. [urr.] 


Now let us see whether we anywhere read about the flesh 
being contrary in the baptized also. And here, I ask, to whom 
did the apostle say, * The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and 
the Spirit against the flesh : and these are contrary the one to 
the other; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would ?"? 
He wrote this, I apprehend, to the Galatians, to whom he also 
says, * He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and 
worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the 
law or by the hearing of faith ?"? It appears, therefore, that 
it is to Christians that he speaks, to whom God had also given 
His Spirit: then it is to the baptized [that these words are 
addressed.| ^ Observe, therefore, that even in baptized persons 
the flesh is found to be contrary; so that they cannot have 
that capacity about which our author speaks as if it were 
inseparably inherent in our nature. Where then is the 
ground for his assertion, “How can it be that in the case 
of a baptized person the flesh is contrary to him?” in what- 
ever sense he understands the flesh? Because in very deed 
it is not the nature of the flesh, which is good, [that is thought 

1 Luke x. 34. ? Gal. v. 17. ? Gal. iii. 5. 


286 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXII. 





of;] but it is the carnal faults of the flesh which are expressly 
named in the passage before us! Yet observe, even in the 
baptized, how contrary is the flesh. And in what way con- 
trary? “They do not the things which they would." Take 
notice that the will is present in a man; but where is that 
capacity of nature [of which we hear so much?] Let us 
confess that grace is necessary to us; let us cry out, “O 
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the 
body of this death?” And let our answer be, [as his of old 
was,] “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord !"? 

CHAP. 62.— Concerning what grace of God the discussion is here concerned. 

The ungodly man, when dying, is not delivered from concupiscence. 

Now, whereas there is the greatest correctness in those 
words of the question put to him, “ Why do you affirm that 
man without the help of God's grace is able to avoid sin?" 
yet the inquiry did not concern that grace of God by which 
man was created, but only that whereby he is saved through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Faithful men say in their prayer, 
* Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"? 
But if they already have [the boasted] capacity of avoiding 
the evil, why do they thus pray for it? Or, what is the evil 
which they pray to be delivered from, but, above all else, “ the 
body of this death ?” And from this only God's grace delivers 
them, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Not indeed from this 
bodily substance of us, which is very good; but from its 
carnal lusts, whence a man is only liberated by the grace 
of the Saviour,—and not when he quits the body by the 
death thereof. If the apostle meant [only] to declare this, 
why had he previously said, “I see another law in my mem- 
bers, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me 
into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members 2” * 
Behold what damage the disobedience of the will has inflicted 
on man’s nature! He may be permitted to pray that he may 
be healed. But why does he presume so strongly on the 
capability of his nature? It is wounded, hurt, harassed, 
destroyed. It is a true confession of its weakness, not a 
false defence of its capacity, that it stands in need of. It 


1 See the context of Gal. v. 17, in verses 19-21. 
? Rom. vii. 24, 25. 3 Matt. vi. 13. * Rom. vii. 23. 








CHAP.LXIIL]  CONTRARIES NOT NECESSARILY REPUGNANT. 287 





requires the grace of God, not that it may be made, but that 
it may be re-made. And this is the only grace which by our 
author is declared to be unnecessary ; and the more loudly so 
declared, because of the silence he keeps about it. If, indeed, 
he had said nothing at all about God's grace, and had not pro- 
posed to himself that question for solution, for the purpose of 
removing from himself the odium of this matter! it might 
have been thought that his view of the subject was consistent 
with the truth, only that he had refrained from mentioning 
it, on the ground that not on all occasions must we say all 
we think. He proposed, [however,] the question of grace, and 
answered it in the way that suited him; it has [therefore] 
assumed its distinctive form, not in the way we wished, but 
according to the doubt we entertained as to what was his 
meaning. | 
Crap. 68. [LIVv.] 

He next endeavours, by much quotation from the apostle, 
about. which there is no controversy, to show “that the flesh 
is often mentioned by him in such a manner as proves him to 
mean not the substance, but the works of the flesh.” What 
is this to the point? The faults of the flesh are contrary to 
the will of man. His nature is not accused, but a Physician 
is wanted for its defects. What signifies his question, * Who 
made man's spirit?" and his own answer thereto, * God, without 
a doubt?" Again he asks, “Who created the flesh?” and again 
answers, “The same God, I suppose.” And yet a third question, 
“Ts the God good who created both?” and the third answer, 
“ Nobody doubts it" Once more a question, * Are not both 
good, since the good Creator made them?” and its answer, * It 
must be confessed that they are.” And then follows his con- 
clusion : “ Since, therefore, the spirit [of man] is good, and his 
flesh good, as made by the good Creator, how can it be that the 
two being good should be contrary to one another?” I need 
not say that the whole of this reasoning would be upset if one 
were to ask him, “ Who made heat and cold?” and he were 
to say in answer, “God, without a doubt" For my part, I 
decline asking a string of questions on the point. Let him 
determine himself whether these conditions of climate may 

1 See above, ch. 59, sub init. 


288 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXIV. 





either be said to be not good, or else whether they do not 
seem to be contrary to each other. Here he will probably 
object, ^ These are not substances, but the qualities of sub- 
stances.” Very true, it is so. But still they are natural 
qualities, and undoubtedly belong to God's creation; and 
substances, indeed, are not said to be contrary to each other 
in themselves, but in their qualities, as water and fire. What 
if it be so too with flesh and spirit? We do not affirm it to 
be so; but, in order to show that his argument terminates in 
a conclusion which does not necessarily follow, we have said 
so much as this: That it is quite possible for contraries not 
to be reciprocally opposed to each other, but rather by mutual 
action to temper health and render it good. Thus, in the 
case of our body, dryness and moisture, cold and heat, are 
substances in the tempering of which altogether consists our 
bodily health. The fact, however, that “the flesh is contrary 
to the Spirit, so that we cannot do the things that we would,”? 
is a defect, not a natural state. The Physician’s grace must 
be sought, and the controversy must end. 
CuapP. 64. 

Now, as touching these two good substances which the 
good God created, how, in the case of unbaptized persons, can 
it be true of them that they are contrary the one to the 
other, as this man’s reasoning would make them to be? Will 
he be sorry to have said this too, which he admitted out of ~ 
some regard to the Christians’ faith ? For when he asked, 
“ How, in the case of any person who is already baptized, 
could there be a contrariousness in his flesh?” he intimated, 
of course, that in the case of unbaptized persons it is possible 
for the flesh to be contrary. For why insert the clause, 
“who 4s already baptized,’ when without such an addition he 
might have put his question thus: “ How in the case of any 
person can the flesh be contrary?” and when, in order to 
prove this, he might have subjoined that argument of his, that 
as both body and spirit are good (made as they are by the 
good Creator), they therefore cannot be contrary to each other ? 
Now, suppose unbaptized persons (in whom, at any rate, he 
holds the contrariousness of the flesh) were to ply him with : 

Gal 17 











CHAP. LXV.] ABSURDITY OF PELAGIUS' ARGUMENT. 289 





his own arguments, and say to him, Who made man's spirit ? 
he must answer, God. Suppose they asked him again, Who 
created the flesh ? and he answers, The same God, I appre- 
hend. Suppose their third question to be, Is the God good 
who ereated both? and his reply to be, Nobody doubts it. 
Suppose once more they put to him his yet remaining in- 
quiry, Are not both good, since the good Creator made them ? 
and his acknowledgment of that truth ;—then surely * they 
will hoist the engineer with his own petard," when they force 
home his conclusion on him, and say: Since therefore the 
spirit of man is good, and his flesh good, as made by the 
good Creator, how can it be that the two being good should 
be contrary to one another? Here, perhaps, he will reply: 
I beg your pardon, I ought not to have said that the flesh 
— cannot be contrary to the spirit in any baptized person, as if 
I meant to imply that it is contrary in the unbaptized ; but 
I ought to have made my statement general, to the effect that 
the flesh in no man’s case is contrary. Now see into what a 
corner he drives himself See what a man will say, who is 
unwilling to cry out with the apostle, * Who shall deliver 
me from the body of this death ? I thank God, through 
Jesus Christ our Lord"!  * But why,” he asks “should I so 
exclaim, who am already baptized in Christ? It is for them 
to cry out thus who have not yet received so great a benefit, 
whose words the apostle in a figure transferred to himself,— 
if indeed even they say so much." Well, so intense is this 
man's defence of nature, that it does not permit even these to 
utter this exclamation. For in the baptized, nature does not 
exist ; nor in the unbaptized is there nature. Or if even in 
the one class it is allowed to be vitiated, so that it is not 
without reason that men exclaim, * O wretched man that I 
am! who shall deliver me from this body of death ?" and to 
the other help is brought in what follows: *I thank God, 
through Jesus Christ our Lord,” let it at last be granted that 
human nature stands in need of Christ for its Physician. 
Cuap. 65. [uv.]—'* This body of death,” so called from its defect, not from its 
substance. 
Now, I ask, when did our nature lose that liberty, which 
1 Rom. vii. 24, 25. 
4 T 


290 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXV. 





he craves to be given to him when he says: “ Who shall 
deliver me?” For even he finds no fault with the substance 
of the flesh when he expresses his desire to be liberated from 
the body of this death, for he affirms that the nature of the 
body, as well as of the soul, must be attributed to the good 


God as the author thereof What he speaks of undoubtedly — 


concerns the sins of the body. Now from our body the death 
of the body separates us; whereas the vices contracted from 
the body remain, and their just punishment awaits them, as 
the rich man [in the parable] found to his cost in hell! From 
these it was that he was unable to deliver himself, who said: 
* Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?"? But 
whensoever it was that he lost the liberty in question, at 
least there remains that capability which is inseparable from 
nature. This power he has from the resources of nature, 
whilst the will comes to him through the freedom of his voli- 
tion. [Then if this be so,] why does he require the sacra- 
ment of baptism ? Is it because of past sins, in order that 
they may be forgiven, since they cannot be undone? Well, 
suppose you acquit and release a man on these terms, he 
must still utter the old cry; for he not only wants to be 
mercifully let off from punishment for past offences, but to 
be strengthened and fortified against sinning for the time to 
come. For he * delights in the law of God, after the inward 
man; but then he sees another law in his members, war- 
ring against the law of his mind"? Observe, he sees that 
there 4s, not recollects that there was. It is a present pres- 
sure, not a past memory. And he sees the other law not 
only “ warring,’ but even ^ bringing him into captivity to the 
law of sin, which és" (not which was) “in his members.” 4 
Hence comes that cry of his: “O wretched man that I am! 
who shall deliver me from the body of this death ?"5 Let 
him pray, let him entreat for the help of the mighty Physician. 
Why gainsay that prayer? Why cry down that entreaty ? 
Why shall the unhappy suitor be hindered from begging for 


CO uo 


the mercy of Christ,—and that too by Christians ? For,[alas!] | 


it was even they who were accompanying Christ that tried 


1 Luke xvi. 23. * Rom. vii. 24. 3 Rom. vii. 22, 23. 
5 Rom, vii. 23. 5 Rom. vii. 24. 








CHAP. LXVIL] THE BAPTIZED HAVE INTERNAL CONFLICTS. 291 





to prevent the blind man, by clamouring him down, from 


begging for light ; but even amidst the din and throng of the 


gainsayers He hears the suppliant ;* whence the invariable 
response: “I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” ? 


Cuap. 66. [LVI.] 


Now if we secure even this éoncession from them, that un- 
baptized persons implore the assistance of the Saviour’s grace, 
this is indeed no slight point against that fallacious assertion 
of the self-sufficiency of nature and of the power of our free 
will [of which we hear so much.] For he has no self-suffi- 
cient resources who says, * O wretched man that I am! who 
shall deliver me?” Nor can he be said to have full liberty 
who still asks for deliverance. But let us, moreover, see to 
this point also, whether they who are baptized do the good 
which they would, without any resistance from the lust of the 
flesh. That, however, which we have to say on this subject, 
our author himself mentions, when concluding this topic he 
says: “As we remarked, the passage in which occur the 
words, ‘The flesh lusteth against the Spirit’? must needs 
have reference not to the substance, but to the works of the 
flesh.” We too allege that this is spoken not of the substance 
of the flesh, but of its works, which proceed from carnal concu- 
piscence,—in a word, from sin, concerning which we have this 
precept : “Not to let it reign in our mortal body, that we 
should obey it in the lusts thereof.” * 


Cuap. 67. [nvir.]— Who may be said to be under the law. 


But even he should observe that it is to persons who have 
been already baptized that it was said: “The flesh lusteth. 
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, so that ye 
cannot do the things that ye would" And lest he should 
make them. disinclined for the actual conflict through sloth, 
and should seem by this statement to have given them laxity 
in sinning, he goes on to tell them: “If ye be led of the 
Spirit, ye are not under the law."5 For that man is under 
the law, who, from fear of the punishment which the law 


1 Mark x. 46-52. 2 Rom. vii. 25. 3 Gal. v. 17. 
4 Rom. vi. 12. * Gal y. 17, 6 Gal. v. 18. 


292 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXVIII. 





threatens, and not from any love for holiness, obliges himself 
to avoid the work of sin, without being as yet free and re- 
moved from the desire of sinning. For it is in his very will 
that he is guilty, whereby he would prefer, if it were possible, 
that [the punishment] he dreads should not exist, in order 
that he might freely do what he secretly desires. Therefore he 
says, “If ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law,” 
—even the law which inspires fear, but gives not love. For 
this “love is shed abroad in our hearts,” not by the letter of 
the law, but “by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.” ! 
This is the law of liberty, not of bondage; being the law of 
love, not of fear; and concerning it the Apostle James says: 
“ Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty,"? etc. Whence 
he no longer indeed felt terrified by God’s law as a slave, but 
delighted in it in the inward man, although still seeing 
another law in his members warring against the law of his 
mind. Accordingly he here says : “If ye be led of the Spirit, 
ye are not under the law." ‘So far, indeed, as any man is led 
by the Spirit, he is not under the law ; because, so far as 
he rejoices in the law of God, he lives not in fear of the law, 
since “fear has torment;"? not joy and delight. 
Cuar. 68, [LVIII. ] 

If, therefore, we feel rightly on this matter, it is our duty 
at once to be thankful for what is already healed within us, 
and to pray for such further healing as shall enable us to 
enjoy full liberty, in that most absolute state of health which 
is incapable of addition, the perfect pleasure at God’s [right 
hand.]* For we do not deny that human nature may be 
without sin; nor ought we by any means to refuse to it the 
power of perfectibility, since we admit its capacity for progress, 
—by God's grace, however, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
By His assistance we aver that it becomes holy and happy, 
by whom it was created in order to be so. There is accord- 
ingly an easy refutation of the objection which our author 
says is alleged by some against him: * The devil is our ad- 
versary.” This objection we also meet in entirely identical 
language with that which he uses in reply : * We must resist 
him, and he will flee. ‘Resist the devil? says the blessed 

1 Rom. v. 5. 2 Jas. i. 25. 31 John iv. 18. *Ps xv IL 





CHAP. LXIX.] THE MEANS FOR AVOIDING SIN. 293 





apostle, ‘and he will flee from you.’ ! From which it may be 
observed, what his harming amounts to against those whom 
he avoids; or what power he is to be understood as possess- 
ing, when he prevails only against those who do not resist 
him.” Such language is my own also; for it is impossible to 
employ truer words. There is, however, this difference be- 
tween us and his partisans, that we, whenever the devil has 
to be resisted, not only do not deny, but actually teach, that 
God's help must be sought; whereas they attribute so much 
power to the human will, as to exempt prayer from religious 
duty. Now it is certainly with a view to resisting the devil 
and his fleeing from us that we say when we pray, “ Lead 
us not into temptation ;"? to the same end also are we warned 
by our Captain, exhorting us as soldiers in the words: “ Watch 
ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation.” ? 
Cur. 69. [LIx. ] 

In opposition, however, to those who ask, * And who 
would be unwilling to be without sin, if it were put in the 
power of a man?” he discusses the question with perfect 
propriety, saying “that by this very question they acknow- 
ledge that the thing is not impossible; because so much as 
this, many, if not all men, certainly desire.” Well, then, let 
him only confess the means by which this is possible, and 
then our controversy is ended. Now the means is the actual 
erace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ ; but nowhere 
has he been willing to allow that we are assisted at all by 
it in our prayers for the avoidance of sin. If indeed he 
happens to have secret views different from his expressed 
opinion, he must forgive us if we suspect otherwise. For 
he himself does no less than this, who, though encounter- 
ing so much obloquy on this subject, wishes to entertain 
the secret opinion, and yet is unwilling to confess or pro- 
fess it. It would surely be no great matter were he to 
speak out, especially since he has undertaken to handle 
and open this point, as if it had been objected against him 
on the side of opponents. Why on such occasions did he 
choose only to defend nature, and assert that man was so 
created as to have it in his power not to sin if he had not 

! Jas. iv. 17. 2 Matt. vi. 13. 3 Mark xiv. 38. 


— 


294 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXX. 





wished to sin; and, from the fact that he was so created, 
definitively say that the power was owing to God's grace 
which enabled him to avoid sin, if he was unwilling to com- 
mit it; and yet, [after all these admissions,] refuse to say any- 
thing concerning the fact that even nature itself is either, 
because disordered, healed by God's grace through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, or else assisted by it, because in itself it is so 
insufficient ? | 
Cruar. 70. [Lx.]— Whether any man is without sin in this life. 

Now, whether there ever has been, or is, or ever can be, a 
man living so righteous a life in this world as to have rio sin 
at all, may be an open question among true and pious Chris- 
tians;' but if any person doubts the possibility of this sinless 
state after this present life, he is unwise. For my own part, 
indeed, I am unwilling to dispute the point even as respects 
this life. For although that passage seems to me to be in- 
capable of bearing any doubtful sense, wherein it is written, 
“In thy sight shall no man living be justified”? (and so of 
similar passages), yet I can only wish it were possible to show 
either that such quotations were capable of bearing a better 
signification, or that a perfect and plenary righteousness, to 
which it were impossible for any accession to be made, had 
ever at any former time existed in any man whilst passing 
through this life in the flesh, or was now existing, or would 
hereafter come into existence. They, however, are in a great 
majority, who, while not doubting that to the last day of their 
life it will be needful to them to resort to the prayer which 
they can so truthfully utter, “Forgive us our trespasses, as 
we forgive those who trespass against us,"? still trust that in 
Christ and His promises they possess a true, certain, and 


— 


unfailing hope. There is, however, no method whereby any 
persons arrive at absolute perfection, or whereby any man 
makes the slightest progress to true and godly righteousness, 
but the assisting grace of our crucified Saviour Christ, and 
the gift of His Spirit; and whosoever shall deny this cannot 
rightly, I almost think, be reckoned in the number of any 
Christians at all. 


1 See next treatise—its preface, or Admonitio, 3 Ps, cxliii. 2. 
8 Matt. vi. 12, 





CIIAP. LXXI.] QUOTATIONS MISAPPLIED BY PELAGIUS. 295 





Cuap. 71. [nxr. ]—A ugustine replies against the quotations which Pelagius had 
advanced, out of the Catholic writers. 

Accordingly, with respect even to the passages which he 
has adduced,—not indeed from the canonical Scriptures, but 
out of certain treatises of Catholie writers,—I wish to meet 
the assertions of such as say that the said quotations make 
for him. The fact is, these passages are so entirely neutral, 
that they oppose neither our own opinion nor his. . Amongst 
them he wanted to class something out of my own books, thus 
aceounting me to be a person who seemed worthy of being 
ranked with [the distinguished writers in question.] For this 
I must not be ungrateful, and I should be sorry—so I say 
with unaffected friendliness—for him to be in error, since he 
has conferred this honour upon me. As for his first quotation, 
indeed, why need I examine it largely, since I nowhere have 
discovered the author's name, either because he has not given 
it, or because from some casual mistake the copy which you! 
forwarded to me did not contain it? Especially as in writings 
of such authors I feel myself free to use my own judgment 
(owing unhesitating assent to nothing but the canonical Serip- 
tures), whilst in fact there is not a passage which he has 
quoted from the works of this—so far as I can find—anony- 
mous author? that disturbs me. “It was right," says he, " for 
the Master and Teacher of virtue to become entirely like man, 
that by conquering sin He might show that man is able to over- 
come sin? Now, whatever be the literal expression of this pas- 
sage, its author must see to it as to what explanation it is capable 
of bearing. We, indeed, on our part, could not possibly doubt 
that in Christ there was no sin to conquer,—born as He was in 
the likeness of sinful flesh, not in sinful flesh itself. Another 
passage is adduced by our author to this effect: “And again, 
that by subduing the desires of the flesh He might teach us 
that it is not of necessity that one sins, but of set purpose and 
wilfulness.”® For my own part, I understand these desires of 
the flesh (since it is not of its unlawful lusts that the writer 


1 Timasius and Jacobus. 

? Lactantius is the writer from whom Pelagius takes his first quotations here, 
^ See his Instit. Divin. iv. 14. 

3 Lactantius, Instit. Divin. iv. 5. 





296 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXXII. 





here speaks) to be such as hunger, thirst, refreshment after 
fatigue, and the like. For it is through these, however fault- 
less they be in themselves, that some men fall into sin,—a 
result which never befell our blessed Saviour, even though, as 
we see from the evidence of the gospel, these affections were 
natural to Him owing to His likeness to sinful flesh. 
Cuap. 72. [rxir. ]— The pure in heart blessed. The doing and perfecting of 
righteousness. 

He quotes the following words from the blessed Hilary: 
“Tt is only when we shall be perfect in spirit, and changed 
in our immortal state, which blessedness has been appointed 
only for the pure in heart, that we shall see that which is 
immortal in God"? Now I am really not aware what is here 
said contrary to our own statement, or in what respect this 
passage is of any use to our opponent, unless it be that it 
testifies to the possibility of a man's being * pure in heart." 
But who denies such possibility? Only it must be through 
Jesus Christ our Lord, and not merely by our freedom of the 
will He goes on to quote also this passage: “This Job had 
so effectually read, that he kept himself from every wicked 
work, because he worshipped God purely with a mind un- 
mixed with vices: now such worship of God is the proper 
work of righteousness.” It is what Job had done which the 
writer here spoke of, not what he had brought to perfection 
in this world, —much less what he had done or perfected with- 
out the grace of that Saviour whom he had actually foretold.’ 
For that man, indeed, abstains from every wicked work, who 
does not allow the sin which he has within him to have 
dominion over him ; and who, whenever an unworthy thought 
stole over him, suffered it not to come to a head in actual 
deed. It is, however, one thing not to have sin, and another 
to refuse obedience to its desires. It is one thing to fulfil 
the command, “Thou shalt not covet;"* and another thing, 
by an endeavour at any rate after abstinence, to do that which 
is also written, * Thou shalt not go after thy lusts"? And 
yet one is quite aware that he can do nothing of all this 
without the Saviours grace. To work righteousness, therefore, 


! See Matt. v. 8. ? Hilary in loco. — 3 Job xix. 25. 
“Ex xx, l4 5 Ecclus. xviii. 30. 








CHAP. LXXIII.] HILARY QUOTED IN REPLY. 297 





[is consistent with] having to fight in an internal struggle 
with the internal evil of concupiscence in the true worship of 
God; whilst to perfect it means to have no adversary at all. 
Now he who has to fight is still in danger, and is sometimes 
shaken, even if he is not overthrown; whereas he who has 
no enemy at all rejoices in perfect peace. He, moreover, is 
most truly said to be without sin in whom no sin has an 
indwelling,—not he who, abstaining from evil deeds, uses such 
language as [the apostle's:] “Now it is no longer I that do 
it, but the sin that dwelleth in me."! | 
Cuap. 73.—He meets Pelagius with another passage from Hilary on 
Ps cxix. 2T. 

Now even Job himself is not silent respecting his own sins ; 
and your friend,” of course, is justly of opinion that humility 
must not by any means be put on the side of falsehood 
and affectation. Whatever confession [of sin,] therefore, Job 
makes, inasmuch as he is a true worshipper of God, he un- 
doubtedly makes it in sincerity and truth.’ Hilary, likewise, 
while expounding that passage of the psalm in which it is 
written, “Thou hast despised all those who turn aside from 
Thy commandments,”* says: “If God were to despise sinners, 
He would despise indeed all men, because no man is without 
sin; but it is those who turn away from Him, whom they 
call apostates, that He despises.” You observe his statement : 
it is not to the effect that no man was without sin, as if he 
spoke of the past; but no man 4s without sin; and on this 
point, as I have already remarked, I have no contention with 
him. But if one refuses to submit to the Apostle John, — 
who does not himself declare, “If we were to say we have 
had no sin,” but “If we say we have no sin,’’—how is he 
likely to show deference to Bishop Hilary? It is in defence 
of the grace of Christ that I lift up my voice, without which 
grace no man is justified, although for nature free will is 
sufficient. Nay, [Christ] Himself lifts up His own voice in 


1 Rom. vii. 20. ? Vestro amico, in reference to Timasius and Jacobus. 

3 Job xl. 4, and xlii. 6. 

* This is probably a version of Ps. exix. 21, the Septuagint of which reads : 
'"Emeripunous vois UmepnQdivois, trinaraparos of inxaAlvovess ad THY iyT07.0V COU, 


5 1 John i. 8. 


LU 


298 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. Lxxv. 





defence of the same. Let us submit to Him when He says: 
“ Without me ye can do nothing." ! 


Cup. 74. [Lx111.] 


He also quotes a passage from St. Ambrose; but in very 
deed this holy man rather opposes those who say that man 
cannot exist without sin in the present life. Jor, in order 
to support his statement, he avails himself of the instance 
of Zacharias and Elisabeth, because they are mentioned as 
“having walked in all the commandments and ordinances” of 
the law “blameless.”* Well, but does he for all that deny 
that it was by God’s grace that they did this through our 
Lord Jesus Christ? It was undoubtedly by such faith in 
Him that holy men lived of old, even before His death. It 
is He who sends the Holy Ghost that is given to us, through 
whom that love is shed abroad in our hearts whereby alone 
the righteous are justified. This same Holy Ghost is ex- 
pressly mentioned by our good bishop, who reminds us that 
He is to be obtained by prayer (so that the will is not 
sufficient unless it be aided by Him); thus in his hymn 
he says: 

** Votisque prestat sedulis, 
Sanctum mereri Spiritum,"— 
“To prayer He gives, when diligent, His Holy Spirit to 
possess." 

Crap, 75.—Augustine adduces in reply some other passages of Ambrose. 

I will quote, on my side too, a passage out of this very 
work of St. Ambrose, from which our opponent has taken the 
statement which he deemed favourable for citation: “So it 
seemed good to me,” he says; “but what he declares seemed 
good to him cannot have seemed good to him alone. For it 
is not simply to his human will that it seemed good, but also 
as it pleased Him, even Christ, who, says he, speaketh in me. 
He it is who causes that which is good in itself to seem good 
to ourselves also. For him on whom He has mercy He also 
calls. He, therefore, who follows Christ, when asked why he 
wished to be a Christian, can answer: Because it seemed good 
tome. In saying this he does not deny that it also pleased 


1 ir . * . 
John xv. 5. ? Lukei. 6. See Ambrose in loco. 











CHAP. LXXV. | AMBROSE VINDICATED. 299 





God; for from God proceeds the preparation of man’s will, 
inasmuch as it is by God’s grace that God is honoured by His 
saint.” See now what your author must learn, if he takes 
pleasure in the words of Ambrose, how that man’s will is 
prepared by God, and that it is of no importance, or, at any 
rate, does not much matter, by what means or at what time 
the preparation is accomplished, provided no doubt is raised 
as to whether the thing itself be capable of accomplishment 
without the grace of Christ. Then, again, how important it 
was that he should observe one point derived from the words 


. of Ambrose which he quoted! For after that holy man had 
said, “Inasmuch as the Church has been gathered out of the 


world, that is, out of sinful men, how can it be spotless when 
composed of such polluted material, except that, in the first 
place, it is washed of its sinful state by the grace of Christ, 
and then, in the next place, abstains from actual sins through 
the character it has acquired of avoiding sin?" he added the 
following sentence, which your author has refused to quote 
for a self-evident reason; for [Ambrose] says: “It was not 
spotless from the very first, for that state was impossible for 
human natuz. It is through the grace of God and that cha- 
racter of its own by which it no longer sins, that it comes to 
pass that it has the appearance of being without spot" Now 
who does not understand the reason why your author declined. 
adding these words? It is, of course, so contrived in the dis- 
cipline of the present life, that the holy Church shall arrive 
at last at that condition of unspotted purity which all holy 
men desire; and that it may in the world to come, and in a 
state unmixed with all soil of evil men, and undisturbed by 
any law of sin resisting the law of the mind, lead the purest 
life in & divine eternity. Still he should well observe what 
Bishop. Ambrose says,—and his statement exactly tallies with 


"the Scriptures: “It was not spotless from the very first, for 


that condition was impossible for human nature.” By his 
phrase, *from the very first, he means indeed from the time 
of our being born of Adam. Adam no doubt was himself 
created in an immaculate condition; in the case, however, of 
those who are by nature children of wrath, deriving from him 
that which in him became corrupt, [Ambrose] distinctly 


300 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXXVII. 





averred that it was an impossibility in human nature that 
they should be unspotted from the very first. 
Cuap. 76. [rxiv.] 

He quotes also John, bishop of Constantinople, as saying 
*that sin is not à substance, but a malignant act" Who 
denies this?  * And because it is contrary to nature, therefore 
the law was given to oppose it, inasmuch also as it proceeds 
from the downward course of the liberty of our will" Who, 
too, denies this? However, the present question concerns 
our human nature in its corrupted state; it is a further 
question also concerning that grace of God whereby our nature 
is healed by the great Physician, Christ, whose remedy it 
would not need if it were only whole. And yet your author 
defends it as capable of not sinning, as if it were sound, or as 
if its freedom of will were self-sufficient. 

Cnar. 77. 

What Christian, again, is unaware of the fact that he quotes 
the blessed Sixtus, bishop of Rome and martyr of Christ, as 
having said, * God has conferred upon men liberty of will, 
in order that by purity and sinlessness of life they may 
become like unto God ?"! But the man who appeals to such 
a free will ought to listen to it and believe, and ask Him in 
whom he believes to give him His assistance not to sin. For 
when he speaks of “becoming like unto God," it is indeed 
through God's love that men are to be like unto God,—even 
the love which is “shed abroad in our hearts,’ not by any 
ability of nature or the free will within us, but * by the Holy 
Ghost which is given unto us"? Then, in respect of what 
the same martyr further says, “A pure mind is a holy temple 
for God, and a clean heart without sin is His best altar," 
who knows not that the clean heart must be brought up to 
this perfect state, whilst *the inward man is renewed day by 
day,'"? but yet not without the grace of God through Jesus 
Christ our Lord? Again, when he even says, “A man of 
chastity and without sin has received power from God to be 


! This passage, which Pelagius had quoted as from Sixtus the Roman bishop 
and martyr, Augustine subsequently ascertained to have had for its author 
Sixtus or Xystus, a isum philosopher. 

? Rom. v. 5. 3 2 Cor. iv. 16. 








CHAP. LXXVIIL] PURITY UNATTAINABLE WITHOUT GRACE. 301 





a son of God,” he of course meant it as an admonition that on 
a man's becoming so chaste and sinless (without raising any 
question as to when and where this perfection was to be 
obtained by him,—although in fact it is quite an interesting 
question among godly men, who are notwithstanding agreed as 
to the possibility of such perfection on the one hand, and on 
the other hand its impossibility except through “ the one 
Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus;"! 
without raising the prior question, as I said before, Sixtus 
designed his words to be an admonition that, on any man's 
attaining such a high character) and thereby being rightly 
reckoned to be among the sons of God, the attainment must 
not be thought to have been the work of any power of his 
own, which indeed he, through grace, received from God; for- 
asmuch as he possessed no such power in his nature, which 
had become vitiated and depraved,—even as we read in the 
Gospel, *But as many as received Him, to them gave He 
power to become the sons of God,"? which they were not by 
nature, nor could at all become, unless by receiving Him they 
also received such power through His grace. This is the 
power which is claimed for itself by the fortitude of that 
love which is only communicated to us by the Holy Ghost 
bestowed upon us. 
Cuap. 78. [1xv.] 

We have next a quotation of some words of the venerable 
presbyter Jerome, from his exposition of the passage where it 
is written: “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see 
God"? Among other remarks, he says: “It is they whom 
no consciousness of sin reproves;" and he adds: “The pure 
man is seen by his purity of heart; the temple of God cannot 
be defiled.” This perfection is, to be sure, wrought in us 
by endeavour, by labour, by prayer, by effectual importunity 
therein that we may be brought up to the perfection in which 
we may be able to see God with a pure heart, by His grace 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. As to his allegation, that the 
forementioned presbyter said, “ God created us with freedom 
of will; we are drawn by necessity neither to virtue nor to 
vice; if it were otherwise, where there is necessity there 

EI Tim... ? John i. 12. . 3 Matt. v. 8. 


302 ON NATURE AND GRACE. _ (CHAP. LXxx. 





would be no crown of reward ;”—-who would not allow this ? 
Who would not cordially accept it? Who would deny that 
human nature was so created? The reason, however, why in 
doing a right action there is no bondage of necessity, is that 
liberty is the essence of charity. 

Cuar. 79. [uxvi.]—A certain necessity of sinning. 

But let us revert to the apostle’s assertion: “The love of 
God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which 
is given unto us"! By whom given if not by Him who 
“ascended up on high, led captivity captive, and gave gifts 
unto men?"? Forasmuch, however, as there is, owing to the 
flaws which have vitiated our nature, though not owing to the 
constitution of our nature, a certain necessary tendency to sin, 
a man should listen, and in order that the said necessity may 
cease to exist, learn to say to God in his prayers, “ Bring 
Thou me out of my necessities;”* because in the very 
offering up of such a prayer there is a struggle against the 
tempter, who fights against us concerning this very necessity ; 
and thus, by the assistance of grace through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, both the evil necessity will be removed and full liberty 
be bestowed. 

Cuap. 80. [1xvir. ]— 7^wo methods whereby sins, like diseases, are guarded 

against. 

Let us now turn to our own case. “ Bishop Augustine 
also,” says your author, “in his books on free will has these 
words : * Whatever is that cause of the will, if it is impossible 
to resist it, submission to it is not sinful; if, however, it may 
be resisted, should it not be submitted to, there will be no sin. 
Does it, perchance, deceive the unwary man? Let him then 
beware that he be not deceived. Is the deception, however, 
so potent that it is not possible to guard against it? If such 
be the case, then there are no sins in the case. For who sins 
in a case where precaution is quite impossible? Sin, however, 
is committed; precaution therefore is possible," * I acknow- 
ledge it, these are my words; but he, too, should condescend 
to acknowledge what I said previously. The question indeed 
is about the grace of God, which helps us as a medicine 


! Rom. v. 5. ? Eph. iv. 8. S.Pasxxyodi 
* Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, iii. 18. 











CHAP. LXXXL] AUGUSTINE EXPLAINS HIMSELF. 303 





through the Mediator; the discussion has no concern with 
the impossibility of righteousness. Whatever, then, may be 
the cause, it may be resisted. Most certainly it may. Now 
it is because of this fact that we pray for help, saying, “ Lead 
us not into temptation.”* This help we should not ask for if 
we supposed that resistance were quite impossible. It is pos- 
sible to guard against sin, but by the help of Him who cannot 
be deceived.” For this very circumstance has much to do with 
guarding against sin that we can unfeignedly say, * Forgive us 
our debts, as we forgive our debtors"? Now there are two 
ways whereby, even in bodily maladies, the evil is guarded 
against,—to prevent its occurrence, and, if it happen, to se- 
cure a speedy cure. ‘To prevent its occurrence, we may find 
precaution in the prayer, ^Lead us not into temptation;" to 
secure the prompt remedy, we have the resource in the 
prayer, “Forgive us our debts" Whether then the danger 
only threaten, or be inherent, it may be guarded against. 


Cuar. 81. 


In order, however, that my meaning on this subject may 
be clear not merely to him, but also to such persons as have 
not read those treatises of mine on the freedom of the will, 
which your author has read, and who have not only not read 
them, but probably do read him; I must go on to quote out of 
my books what he has omitted, but which, if he had perceived 
and quoted in his letter, no controversy would be left between 
us on this subject. For immediately after those words of 
mine which your friend has quoted, I expressly added, and 
(as fully as I could) worked out, the train of thought which 
might occur to any one’s mind, to the following effect: “ And 
yet some actions are disapproved of, even when they are done 
in ignorance, and are judged deserving of chastisement, as we 
read in the inspired authorities.” After taking some examples 
out of these, I went on to speak also of infirmity as follows: 
* Some actions also encounter disapprobation, even when they 
are done from necessity ; as when a man wishes to act rightly 


1 Matt. vi. 13. 
? Augustine gives a similar reply to the objection in his Retractationes, i. 9. 
3 Matt. vi. 12. 


304 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXXXI. 





and cannot. For whence arise those utterances: ‘ For the 
good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, 
that I do' ?"! "Then, after quoting some other passages of the 
Holy Scriptures to the same effect, I say: “But all these are 
the sayings of persons who come from that condemnation of 
death; for if this is not man's punishment, but his nature, 
then those are no sins" Then, again, a little afterwards I 
add: “It remains, therefore, that this is the just punishment 
of persons who come of man's condemnation. Nor ought it 
to be wondered at, that either by ignorance man has not 
liberty of will to choose what he will rightly do, or that 
by the resistance of that carnal habit (which by force of 
mortal transmission has, in a certain sense, become engrafted 
into his nature), though seeing what ought rightly to be done, 
and wishing to do it, he yet is unable to accomplish it. For 
this is the justest penalty of sin, that a man should lose what 
he has refused to make a good use of, when he might with 
ease have done so if he would; which, however, amounts to 
this, that the man who knowingly refuses to do what is right 
loses the ability to do it when he wishes. For, in truth, to 
every soul that sins there accrue these two penal consequences 
—ignorance and difficulty. Out of the ignorance springs the 
error which disgraces; out of the difficulty arises the pain 
which afflicts. But to approve of falsehoods as if they were 
true, so as to err involuntarily, and to be unable, owing to the 
resistance and pain of carnal bondage, to refrain from deeds of 
lust, is not the nature of man as he was created, but the punish- 
ment of man as under condemnation. When, however, we speak 
of a free will to do what is right, we of course mean that liberty 
in which man was created.” Some men at once deduce what 
seems to them a just objection from the transfer and trans- 
mission of sins of ignorance and difficulty from the first man 
to his posterity ; my answer to such objectors is this: “I tell 
them, by way of a brief reply, to be silent, and to cease from 
murmuring against God. Perhaps their complaint might have 
been a proper one, if from among men there had not stood 
forth a vanquisher of error and of lust; but there is every- 
where present One who calls off from himself, through the 


1 Rom. vii. 19. 








CHAP. LXXXIL] CORRUPTION OF MAN'S NATURE. 305 





creature by so many means, the man who serves the Lord, 
teaches him when believing, consoles him when hoping, en- 
courages him when loving, helps him when endeavouring, 
hears him when praying. It is not reckoned to you as a 
fault that you are involuntarily ignorant, but that you neglect 
to search out what you are ignorant of; nor is it imputed to 
you in censure that you do not bind up the limbs that are 
wounded, but that you despise him who wishes to heal 
them"! In such terms did I exhort them, as well as I 
could, to live righteously; nor did I frustrate the grace of 
God, without which the now obscured and tarnished nature 
of man can neither be enlightened nor purified. Our whole 
discussion with them on this subject turns upon this, that we. 
frustrate not the grace of God which is in Jesus Christ our 
Lord by a perverted assertion of natural powers. In a passage 
occurring shortly after the last quoted one, I said in reference 
to these natural powers: * Of our actual nature we speak in 
one sense, when we properly and specially describe it as that 
human nature in which man was created faultless after his 
kind; and in another sense of that nature in which we are 
born ignorant and carnally minded, owing to the penal con- 
dition of man under condemnation, after the manner men- 
tioned by the apostle, * We ourselves likewise were by nature 
children of wrath, even as others. "? 


CnAF. 82. [rxvirr.] 


If, therefore, we wish “to rouse and kindle cold and sluggish 
souls by Christian exhortations to lead righteous lives"? we 
must first of all exhort them to that faith whereby they may 
become Christians, and be subjects of His name and authority, 
without whom they cannot be saved. If, however, they are 
already Christians, but neglect to lead holy lives, they must 
be chastised with alarms, and be aroused by the praises of 
reward,—in such a manner, indeed, that we must not forget 
to urge them to godly prayers as well as to virtuous actions, 
and furthermore to instruct them in such wholesome doctrine, 

1 De Libero Arbitrio, iii. 19. ? Eph. ii. 3. 


? This passage, and others in this and the following chapters, are marked as 
quotations, apparently cited by Pelagius from Augustine. 


4 U 


506 ON NATURE AND GRACE. _[CHAP. LXXXIII. 





that they be induced thereby to thank [God] for being able to 
accomplish any step in that holy life which they have entered 
upon, without distraction or difficulty,’ and whenever they do 
experience such * difficulty," that they then wrestle with God 
in most faithful and persistent prayer and ready works of 
mercy to obtain from Him a removal of the difficulty. But 
provided they thus progress, I am not over-anxious as to the 
where and the when of their perfection in the absolute fulness. 
of holy living; only I solemnly assert, that wheresoever and 
whensoever the great climax is reached, it cannot be but by 
the grace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. When, 
indeed, they have attained to the clear knowledge that they 
have no sin, let them not say *they have no sin, lest the 
truth be not in them;"? even as the truth is not in those 
persons who, though hey have sin, 1s say that they have 
it not. 

Cuap. 83. [rxix. ]—God enjoins no impossibility, because all things are possible 

and easy to love. The commandment of love never grievous. 

But “the precepts of the law are very good,” if we use 
them lawfully.’ Indeed, by the very fact (of which we have 
the firmest conviction) * that God, being just and good, could 
not possibly have enjoined on us any impossibilities,” we are 
admonished both what to do in easy paths and what to ask 
for when they are difficult. Now all things are easy for love 
to UT to which (and which alone) * Christ's burden is 
light,” “—-or rather, it is itself alone the burden which is 
light, Accordingly it is said, “And His commandments are 
not grievous ;”° so that whoever finds them grievous must 
regard the inspired statement about their “not being griev- 
ous” as having been capable of only this meaning, that there 
may be a state of heart to which they are not burdensome, 
and he must pray for that disposition which he at present 
wants, so as to be able to fulfil all that is commanded him. 
And this is the purport of what is said to Israel in Deutero- 
nomy, if understood in a godly, sacred, and spiritual sense. 
[This is clear from the fact] that the apostle, after quoting 


thor the difficulty,” which is one of the penal consequences of sin, see last 
chapter, about its middle. 


? ] John i, 8. ? See 1 Tim. i. 8. 4 Matt. xi. 90. 5] John v. 8. 











\ 


CHAP. LXXXIV.] | LOVE QUICKENS OBEDIENCE. 307 





the passage, “The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and 
in thy heart"! (and, as the verse also has it, in thine hands? 
for in man’s heart are his spiritual hands), adds in explana- 
tion, * This is the word of faith which we preach.”* No man, 
therefore, who “ returns to the Lord his God,” as he is there 
commanded, * with all his heart and with all his soul,” * will 
. find God's commandment “ grievous.” How, indeed, can it be 
grievous, when it is the precept of love? Either, therefore, 
a man has not love, and then it is grievous; or he has love, 
and then it is not grievous. But he possesses love if he does 
what is there enjoined on Israel, by returning to the Lord his 
God with all his heart and with all his soul. “A new com- 
mandment,” says [Christ,] “do I give unto you, that ye love 
one another ;”° while [His apostle writes,] “He that loveth 
his neighbour hath fulfilled the law ;"$ and again, “ Love is 
the fulfilling of the law."" In accordance with these sayings 
is that passage, “ Had they trodden good paths, they would 
have found, indeed, the ways of righteousness easy.”® How 
then is it written, “ Because of the words of Thy lips, I have 
kept the paths of difficulty,’® except it be that both statements 
are true: These paths are paths of difficulty to fear; but to 
love they are easy ? 
Cup. 84. [rxx.]— T'he stages of love are also stages of holiness. 

Inchoate love, therefore, is inchoate holiness ; advanced love 
is advanced holiness; great love is great holiness; * perfect love 
is perfect holiness,"—but this * love is out of a pure heart, and 
of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned,” ? * which in this 
life is then the greatest, when life itself is contemned in com- 
parison with it" I wonder, however, whether it has not a 
soil in which to grow after it has quitted this mortal life! 
But in what place and at what time soever it shall reach 
that state of absolute perfection, which shall admit of no 
increase, ib is certainly not *shed abroad in our hearts" by 

1 Deut. xxx. 14, quoted Rom. x. 8. 


? According to the Septuagint, which adds after i» zz xapdia cov the words 
xu) tv cuis xepoi cov. This was probably Pelagius' reading. 


3 Rom. x. 8. 4 Deut. xxx. 2. 5 John xiii. 34. 
6 Rom. xiii. 8. 7 Rom. xiii. 10. 8 Prov. ii. 20 (Septuagint). 
9 Ps. xvii. 4. 10 1 Tim. 1. 5. 


1! See note at beginning of ch. 82 for the meaning of this mark of quotation. 


308 ON NATURE AND GRACE. [CHAP. LXXXIV. 





any energies either of the nature or the volition that are 
within us, but “by the Holy Ghost which is given unto 
us," and which both helps our infirmity and co-operates 
with our strength. For it is itself indeed the grace of God, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom, with the Father 
and the Holy Spirit, appertaineth eternity, and all goodness, 
for ever and ever. Amen. 


! Rom. v. 5. 


PREFACE TO THE TREATISE 


ON THE 


PERFECTION OF MAN'S RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


E 


yis enn E has made no mention of this treatise in his 

book of Retractations ; for the reason, no doubt, that 
it formed a portion of the EpISTLES, for which he designed a 
separate statement of Retractations. In all the ss. this work 
begins with his usual epistolary salutation: * Sanctis fratribus 
et coepiscopis Eutropio et Paulo, Augustinus"  [ Augustine, to 
his holy brethren and fellow-bishops Eutropius and Paulus]. 
And yet, by general consent, this epistle has been received 
as a treatise, —and is so classed, not only in those volumes of 
his works which contain the copy of the work, but also in the 
writings of those ancient authors who quote it. Amongst the 
more renowned of these, and who are at the same time better 
acquainted with Augustine’s writings, PossIDIUS (Jn indiculo, 4) 
and FuLcENTIus (Ad Monimum, i. 3) expressly call this work 
“A Treatise on the Perfection of Maws Righteousness.” So far 
nearly all the mss. agree, but a few (including the Codd. 
Audéenensis and Pratellensis) add these words to the general 
title: * Adversus eos que asserunt hominem posse fieri justum 
solis suis viribus" [In opposition to those who assert that it 
is possible for a man to become righteous by his own sole 
strength] In a Ms. belonging to the Church of Rheims there 
occurs this inscription: “ Liber de definitionibus que dicuntur 
Calestii" [The book of what are called the definitions or breviates 
of Coelestius| Prosper, in his work against Collator, ch. 43, 
advises his reader to peruse, besides some other of Augustine's 
* books," that which he wrote “to the bishops Paulus and 

309 


910 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. 





Eutropius in opposition to the questions of Pelagius and 
Coelestius." 

From this passage of Prosper, however, in which he men- 
tions, but with no regard to accurate order, some of the short 
treatises of Augustine against the Pelagians, nobody could 
rightly show that this work On the Perfection of Man's Right- 
eousness was later in time than his work On Marriage and 
Concupiscence, or than the six books against Julianus, which 
are mentioned previously in the same passage by Prosper. 
Now, at the conclusion of the present treatise, Augustine hesi- 
tates as yet to censure those persons who affirmed that men 
are living or have lived in this life righteously without any 
sin at all: their opinion Augustine, in the passage referred to 
(just as in his treatises On Nature and Grace, and On the 
Spirit and the Letter), does not yet think it necessary stoutly 
to resist. Nothing had as yet, therefore, been determined on 
this point; nor were there yet enacted, in opposition to this 
opinion, the three well-known canons (6—8) of the Council of 
Carthage, which was held in the year 418. Afterwards, how- 
ever, on the authority of these canons, he cautions people 
against the opinion as a pernicious error, as one may see from 
many passages in his books Against the two Epistles of the 
Pelagians, especially Book Iv. ch. x. (27), where he says: 
* Let us now consider that third point of theirs, which each 
individual member of Christ as well as His entire [mystical] 
body regards with horror, where they contend that there are in 
this life, or have been, righteous persons without any sin what- 
ever" In the year 414, in an epistle (157) to Hilary, when 
answering the questions which were then being agitated in 
Sicily, he certainly .expresses himself in the same tone, and 
almost in the same language, on this subject of sinlessness, as 
that which he employs at the end of this present treatise. 
“But those persons,” says he (in ch. ii. of that epistle), 
“ however much one may tolerate them when they affirm that 
there either are, or have been, men besides the one Prince of 
saints who have been wholly free from sin; yet when they 
allege that man's own free-will is sufficient for fulfilling the 
Lord's commandments, even when unassisted by God's grace 
and the gift of the Holy Spirit for the performance of good 








PREFACE. oTI 





works, the idea is altogether worthy of anathema and of 
perfect detestation" Now, on comparing these words with 
the conclusion of this treatise before us, nothing will appear 
more probable than that the work which supplies the refuta- 
tion of Ccelestius’ questions, which were also brought over - 
from Sicily, was written not long after the above-mentioned 
epistle. This work Possidius, in his index, places immediately 
after the treatise On Nature and Grace, and before the book 
On the Proceedings of Pelagius. Augustine, however, does not 
mention this work in his epistle (169) which he addressed to 
Evodius about the end of the year 415; but he intimates in 
it that he had published an answer to the Commonitoriwm of 
Orosius, wherein that author stated that “the bishops Eutro- 
pius and Paulus had already given information to Augustine 
about certain formidable! heresies.” Some suppose that this 
statement refers to the letter which they despatched to Augus- 
tine along with Ccelestius’ propositions. However that be, it 
is not unreasonable to believe that they, not long after Orosius’ 
arrival in Africa (that is, before the midsummer of the year 
415), had sent these propositions to him, and that Augustine 
soon afterwards wrote back to Eutropius and Paulus a refuta- 
tion of them, his answer to Orosius having been previously 
given. 

Furthermore, Codestius, whose name is inscribed in the 
propositions, “wrote to his parents from his monastery,’ as 
Gennadius informs us in his work on Church writers (De 
Scriptoribus Ecclesiasticis), “before he fell in with the teach- 
ing of Pelagius, three letters in the shape of short treatises, 
necessary for all seekers after God.” Afterwards he openly 
professed the Pelagian heresy, and published a short treatise, 
in which, besides other topics, he acknowledged in the Church 
of Carthage that even infants had redemption by being bap- 
tized into Christ,—an episcopal decision on the question 
having been obtained in that city about the commencement 
of the year 412, as we learn from an epistle to Pope Innocent 
(amongst the Epistles of Augustine [175, n. 1 and 6], as 
well as from the epistle [157, n. 22] which we have referred 
to above; and from his work On the Merits of Sins, 1. 62, and 


! Aliquantis. 


312 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. 





ii. 59; also from his treatise On Original Sin, 21; and his 
work Against Julianus, ii. 9. Another work by an anony- 
mous writer, but which was commonly attributed to Coelestius, 
divided into chapters, is mentioned in the treatise which 
follows the present one, On the Proceedings of Pelagius; see 
chapters 29, 30, and 62. There were extant, moreover, in 
the year 417, several small books or tracts of Ccelestius, which 
Augustine, in his work On the Grace of Christ, 31, 32, and 
36, says were produced by Coelestius himself in some ecclesi- 
astical proceedings at Rome under Zosimus. Augustine, at 
the commencement of the present work Om the Perfection of 
Maws Righteousness, mentions an undoubted work of Cceles- 
tius as having been seen by him, from which he discovered 
that the definitions or breviates therein examined by Augus- 
tine were not unsuited to the tone and temper of Ccelestius. 
This was very probably the book which Jerome quotes in his 
Epistle to Ctesiphon, written in the year 413 or 314. These 
are Jerome's words: “ One of his followers [that is, Pelagius’], 
who was already in fact become the master and the leader 
of all that army, and ‘a vessel of wrath,’ in opposition to 
the apostle, runs on through thickets, not of syllogisms, as 
his admirers are apt to boast, but of solecisms, and philoso- 
phizes and disputes to the following effect: *If I do nothing 
without God's help, and if everything which I shall achieve 
is owing to His operations solely, then it follows that it is not 
I who work, but only God's work is to be crowned in me. 
In vain, therefore, has He conferred on me the power of will, 
if I am unable to exercise it fully without His incessant help. 
That volition, indeed, is destroyed which requires the assist- 
ance of another But it is a free will which God has given 
to me; and free it can only remain, if I do whatever I wish. 
The state of the case then is this: I either use once for all 
the power which has been bestowed on me, so as to retain my 
will in freedom ; or else, if I require the assistance of another, 
all liberty of volition in me perishes.’” 
! Rom. ix. 22. 








À TREATISE 


CONCERNING 


MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. 


BY 


AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, 
BISHOP OF HIPPO, 
A.D. 415. 


A PAPER CONTAINING SUNDRY PROPOSITIONS,! SAID TO HAVE BEEN DRAWN UP 
BY CGLESTIUS, WAS PUT INTO THE HANDS OF AUGUSTINE. IN THIS DOCU- 
MENT, C@LESTIUS, OR SOME PERSON WHO SHARED IN HIS ERRORS, HAD 
RECKLESSLY ASSERTED THAT A MAN HAD IT IN HIS POWER TO LIVE HERE 
WITHOUT SIN. AUGUSTINE FIRST REFUTES THE SEVERAL PROPOSITIONS IN 
BRIEF ANSWERS, SHOWING THAT THE PERFECT AND PLENARY STATE OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS, IN WHICH A MAN EXISTS ABSOLUTELY WITHOUT SIN, IS 
UNATTAINABLE WITHOUT GRACE BY THE MERE RESOURCES OF OUR CORRUPT 
NATURE, AND IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH THIS PRESENT STATE OF EXISTENCE. 
HE NEXT PROCEEDS TO CONSIDER THE AUTHORITIES WHICH THE PAPER 
CONTAINED AS GATHERED OUT OF THE SCRIPTURES ; SOME OF THEM TEACH- 
ING MAN TO BE ‘‘ UNSPOTTED” AND ‘‘ PERFECT ;" OTHERS MENTIONING THE 
COMMANDMENTS OF GOD AS ‘‘NOT GRIEVOUS ;" WHILE OTHERS AGAIN ARE 
QUOTED AS OPPOSED TO THE AUTHORITATIVE PASSAGES WHICH THE CATHOLICS 
WERE ACCUSTOMED TO ADVANCE AGAINST THE PELAGIANS. 


CHAP. I. 


HAT charity of yours, which in both of you is so con- 
spicuous and so constraining as even to afford delight 
to one in obeying its commands, has laid me under an obli- 
gation to reply to some propositions which are said to be the 
work of Coelestius ; for so runs the prefatory note on the paper 
which you have given me, * Definitiones, ut dicitur, Calestii " 
1 These breves definitiones, which Augustine also calls ratiocinationes, are 
short argumentative statements, which we propose to designate breviates. 
313 


314 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. II. 





[“The definitions, so it is said, of Coelestius"] As for this 
prefatory note, I take it that it does not refer so much to him 
as to those persons who have brought this report from Sicily, 
where Ccelestius is expressly said not to be; although many 
there! make boastful pretension of holding views like his, who, 
to use the apostle's word, “are themselves deceived, and lead 
others also astray."? "That these views are, however, in accord- 
ance with his teaching, or that of sundry associates? of his, 
‘we can well imagine. For the above-mentioned brief defini- 
tions, or rather argumentative propositions, are by no means 
at variance with his opinion, such as I have seen it expressed . 
in another work, of which he is the undoubted author. There 
was therefore good reason, I think, for the report which those 
brethren, who brought these tidings to us, heard in Sicily, that 
Coelestius taught such opinions and committed them to writ- 
ing. I should like, so far as I could, so to meet the obliga- 
tion imposed on me by your brotherly kindness, as to contrive 
that my own answers should be as brief [as this man's bre- 
viates] But, at the same time, I must set forth the proposi- 
tions also which elicit my answers; otherwise, who will be 
able to form a judgment of the value of my confutation ? 
Still I will try to the best of my ability, assisted, too, as God 
shall mercifully permit, by your own prayers, so to conduct 
the discussion as to keep it from running to an unnecessary 
length. 
Cuap. 11.—(1.) The first breviate of Colestius. 

“First of all,” says he, “we must ask any one who denies 

man's ability to live without sin of what sort every sin is,— 


1 In his epistle (157) to Hilary, written a little while before this work, he 
mentions Ccelestius and the condemnation of his errors in a Council held at 
Carthage ; he expresses also some apprehension of Coelestius attempting to spread 
his opinions in Sicily: ** Whether he be himself there," says Augustine, f*or 
only others who are partners in his errors, there are too many of them ; and, 
unless they be checked, they lead astray others to join their sect ; and so great 
is their increase, that I cannot tell whither they will force their way,” etc. 

* 2 En. Mla ibe 

3 Sociorum ejus. It has been proposed to read sectatorum ejus, —not unsuit- 
ably (although not justified by Ms. evidence), because Ceelestius ‘‘had,” to use 
Jerome's words, ** by this time turned out a master with ;following,—the leader 


of a perfect army."—Jerome's Epistle to Ctesiphon, written in the year 413 or 
414. 








— 


— 


CHAP. II.] MAN'S ABILITY THROUGH GRACE. 915 





is it such as can be avoided? or is it unavoidable? If it is 
unavoidable, then it is not sin; if it can be avoided, then a 
man can live without the sin, which can be avoided. No 
right nor rule permits us to designate as sin that which cannot 
in any way be avoided.” Our answer to this is, that sin can 
be avoided, if our corrupt nature be healed by God's grace, 
through our Lord Jesus Christ. For, as far as it is in an un- 
sound state, so far does it either through blindness fail to see, 
or through infirmity fail to accomplish, that which it ought 
to do; “for the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit 
against the flesh"! so that a man cannot do the things which 
he would. 
(2.) The second breviate. 

“We must next ask, whether sin comes from choice, or from 
necessity? If from necessity, it is not sin; if from choice, 
it can be avoided.” We answer as before; and in order that 
we may be healed, we pray to Him to whom that suffrage 
is addressed in the psalm: “Lead Thou me out of my 
necessities.” ? | | 

(3.) The third breviate. 

* Again we must ask, what sin is——is it natural? or is it 
accidental? If natural, it is not sin ; if accidental, it can get 
out of the way; and if it can get out of one's way,it can be 
avoided; and man ean very well dispense with that which 
can be avoided.” The answer to this is, that sin is not 
natural; on the contrary, nature (especially in that corrupt 
state from which we have become by nature “children of 
wrath"?) has too little power of will to avoid sin, unless 
assisted and healed by God's grace through our Lord Jesus 
Christ. 

(4.) The fourth breviate. 

“We must then ask, What is sin,—a real thing, or only an 
act? If a reality, it must of course have an author; and if 
it be admitted to have an author, then another besides God 
will manifestly be introduced as the author of a real thing. 
Now since it is impious to make such an admission as this, 


we are driven to the conclusion that every sin is an act, not a 


reality. If therefore it is an act, on this very ground it is 
! Gal. v. 17. VYPOLurvo 14 3 Eph. ii. 3. 


316 - ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. III. 





capable of being avoided." Our reply is, that sin no doubt is 
called an action, and is such, not a real thing. But then in 
the body lameness by the same rule is an act, not a thing, 
since it is the foot itself, or the body, or the human being who 
walks lame because of an injured foot, that is the thing ; but 
still the man cannot avoid the lameness, unless his foot be 
cured. The same change may take place in the inward man, 
but it is by God's grace, through our Lord Jesus Christ. The 
very defect which causes the lameness of the man is neither 
the foot, nor the body, nor indeed the lameness itself; for 
there is of course no lameness in the case, when there is no 
walking, although undoubtedly there is the inherent defect 
which causes the lameness whenever there is an attempt to 
walk. He should therefore ask, what name must be given to 
this defect,—would he have it called a thing, or an act, or 
rather a disordered quality in the thing, which causes the 
existence of the deformed act? So in the inward man the 
soul is the really existing thing, the theft is the act, and 
dishonest desire is the vitiated condition, or quality by which 
the soul becomes evilly affected, even when it does nothing in 
immediate gratification of its avaricious principle,—even when 
it hears the prohibition, “Thou shalt not covet,"' and censures 
its own covetousness, and yet retains its evil affection still. 
By faith, however, it receives renovation; in other words, it 
receives a healing remedy, and applies it day by dayj—Xyet 
only by God's grace through our Lord Jesus Christ. 


Cuap. 111.—(5.) The fifth breviate. 


“We must next inquire whether a man ought to be with- 
out sin? No doubt he ought. If he ought, he is able; if he 
is not able, for that reason he ought not. Now if a man 
ought not to be without sin, it follows that he ought to be 
with sin—and then it ceases to be sin at all, if it be so 
plainly due. Since, however, it is absurd even to put such a 
statement into words, we are obliged to confess that man 
ought to be without sin; and it is clear that his obligation is 
not more than his ability? We frame our answer with the 
same illustration as we employed in our previous reply. 

FEE EL 2 2 Cor. iv. 16. 








CHAP. III.] HUMAN INABILITY NEEDS GRACE. 317 





When we see a lame man who has the opportunity of being 
cured of his lameness, we of course have a right to say: That 
man.ought not to be lame; and since this is the case, he can 
avoid the lameness. And yet this ability of his does not 
immediately ensue whenever he wishes; but only after the 
applieation of the remedy and the completion of the cure,— 
when the remedial resource has assisted his will The same 
thing takes place in the inward man in relation to sin, which 
is its lameness, by the grace of Him who “came not to call 
the righteous, but sinners;”* since “the whole need not the 
physician, but only they that be sick.” ’ 

(6.) The sixth breviate. 

. * Again, we have to inquire whether man is commanded to 
be without sin; for either he is not able [so to live,] and then 
there is no such commandment; or else if there is such a 
commandment, he has the ability. For why should that be 
commanded to be done, which there is no ability at all to. 
do?" The answer is obvious. Man is most wisely com- 
manded to walk with right steps, on purpose that, when he 
has discovered his own inability to do even this, he may seek 
the remedy which is provided for the inward man to cure the 
lameness of sin, even the grace of God, through our Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

(7.) The seventh breviate. 

“The next question we shall have to propose is, whether 
God wills that man be without sin. No doubt God wills it; 
and no doubt there is the ability on man’s part. For who 
is so foolhardy as to hesitate to believe that to be possible, 
which he has no doubt about God's willing to be done?" 
This is the answer. If God willed not that man should be 
without sin, He would not have sent His Son without sin, to 
heal men of their sins. This takes place in believers, who 
are being renewed day by day,’ until their righteousness 
becomes perfect, like fully restored health. 


(8.) The eighth breviate. 
* Again, this question must be asked: in what manner God 
would have a man live—with sin, or without sin? Beyond a 
1 Matt. ix. 18. ? Matt. ix. 12. 3 2 Cor. iv. 16. 


918 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP.IV. - 





doubt, it is not with sin that He would have him live We 
must reflect how great would be the impious blasphemy for 
it to be said that man had it in his power to exist with sin, 
which God does not wish; and for it to be denied that he had 
it in his power to live EO sin, which God wishes: just as 
if God had created any man for such a result as this,—that 
he should be capable of being what He would not have him 
be; and incapable of being what He would have him be; and 
that he should rather lead an existence contrary to His SUE 
than one which should be in accordance therewith." This 
has been in fact already answered; but I see that it is 
necessary for me to make here an additional remark, that “we 
are saved by hope; but hope that is seen is not hope; for 
what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? PBut if we hope 
for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." 
Plenary righteousness, therefore, will only then be reached, 
. when fulness of [moral soundness, or] health is attained ; and 
this fulness of health shall be when there is fulness of love; 
for “love is the fulfilling of the law;"? and then shall come 
fulness of love, when “we shall see Him even as He is"* 
Nor will any addition to love be possible more, when faith 
shall have reached the fruition of sight. 

Cusp. 1v.—(9.) The ninth breviate. (The hard necessity of possessing sin has 

always pursued sinners.) 

“The next question we shall require to be solved is this: 
By what means is it brought about that man exists with sin ? 
Is it through the necessity of his nature, or through the 
choice of his will? If it is through the necessity of his 
nature, he is blameless; if through his own will, then the 
question arises, from whom he has received this freedom of 
will? No doubt, from God. Well, but that which God 
bestows is certainly good. This cannot be gainsaid. On 
what principle, then, is a thing proved to be good, if it is more 
prone to evil than to good? For there is a greater proneness 
to evil than to good in an arrangement which renders it im- 


! Rom. viii. 24, 25. 

? Of course we here miss the pleasant terseness of the original: ** Tunc plena 
sanitas, quando plena caritas." 

3 Rom. xiii, 10. . 41 John iii. 2. 








CHAP. IV.] LIBERTY THROUGH CHRIST. 219 





possible for a man to live without sin.” The answer is this: 
It came to pass by the exercise of free will that man associ- 
ated himself with sin ; but a penal viciousness closely followed 
thereon, and out of the liberty produced necessity. Hence 
the ery of faith to God, “Lead Thou me out of my neces- 
sities.” With these necessities upon us, we are either unable 
to understand what we want, or else (while having the wish) 
we are not strong enough to accomplish what we have come 
to understand. Now real liberty is promised to believers by 
the Deliverer. “If the Son,” says He, “ shall make you free, 
ye shall be free indeed."? For, vanquished by the sin into 
which it fell by the bent of its will,nature has lost its liberty. 
Hence another Scripture says, * For of whom a man is over- 
come, of the same is he brought in bondage."? Since there- 
fore *the whole need not the physician, but only they that be 
sick ;”* so likewise it is not the free that need the Deliverer, 
but only the enslaved. Hence the cry of joy to Him for 
deliverance, “Thou hast saved my soul from the straits of 
necessity."? For true liberty is also real sanity—the con- 
dition of “the whole.”] And this state would never have been 
lost, if the will of man had remained good. But because the 
will turned to sinning, the hard necessity of possessing sin 
pursued the sinner; [and will pursue him,] until his in- 
firmity be wholly remedied, and such freedom be regained, 
that there must needs be, on the one hand, a permanent 
will to live happily, and, on the other hand, a voluntary 
and happy necessity of living virtuously also, and of always 
avoiding sin, | 

(10.) he tenth breviate. 

* Since God made man good, and, in addition to this, further 
commanded him to do good, how impious it is for us to hold 
that man is evil when he was neither made so, nor taught 
to act so; and to deny him the capability of being good, 
although he was both made so, and commanded to act so!” 
Our answer here is: Since then it was not man himself, but 
God, who made man good; so also is it God, and not man 
himself, who remakes him to be good, while liberating him 

l Ds xxv. 17. ? John viii. 38. 3 2 Pet. ii, 19. 

* Matt. ix. 12. 5 Ps, xxxi. 7 (Septuagint), 


320 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. V. 





from the evil which he himself did upon his willing, believing, 
| and invoking such a deliverance. But all this is effected by 
the renewal day by day of the inward man, by the grace of 
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, with a view to the out- 
ward man's resurrection at the last day to an eternity not of 
punishment, but of life. 

Cuap. v.—(11.) The eleventh breviate. (The general prohibition in Scripture is, 


6 Thou shalt not covet,” and the general precept, ** Thou shalt love ;" the 
office of the law.) 


* The next question which must be put is, in how many 
ways all sin becomes apparent? In two, if I mistake not: 
when either those things are done which are forbidden, or 
those things are left undone which are bidden. Now, it is 
. just as certain that all things which are forbidden are able 
to be avoided, as it is that all things which are commanded 
are able to be effected. For it is vain either to forbid or to 
enjoin that which cannot either be guarded against or accom- 
plished. And how shall we deny the possibility of man's 
living without sin, when we are compelled to admit that 
he can as well avoid all those things which are forbidden, 
as do all those which are commanded?” My answer is, that 
in the Holy Scriptures there are many divine precepts, to 
mention the whole of which would be too laborious; but the 
Lord, who on earth consummated His word and also abridged 
it? expressly declared that the law and the prophets hung on 
two commandments, that we might understand that what- 
ever else has been enjoined on us by God ends in these two 
commandments, and must be referred to them: * Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind;”* and “Thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself"? “On these two commandments,” says 
Christ, “hang all the law and the prophets"^ Whatever, 
therefore, we are by God's law forbidden, and whatever we 
are bidden to do, we are forbidden and bidden with the direct 
object of fulfilling these two commandments. And probably 
the general prohibition is, “Thou shalt not covet;" and the 


1 2 Cor. iv. 16. ? An application of Rom. ix. 28. 
3 Matt. xxii. 40. * Matt. xxii. 97. 5 Matt. xxii. 99. 
$ Matt. xxii. 40. 7 Ex. xx. 27. 








CHAP. VI.] THE LAW LEADS TO CHRIST. 321 





“= ial 


general precept, “Thou shalt love.”* Accordingly the 
Apostle Paul, in a certain place, briefly embraced the two, 
expressing the prohibition in these words, * Be not con- 
formed to this world,’? and the command in these, “But be 
ye transformed by the renewing of your mind."? The former 
falls under the negative precept, not to covet; the latter under 
the positive one, to love. The one has reference to continence, 
the other to righteousness. The one enjoins avoidance of 
evil; the other, pursuit of good. By eschewing covetousness 
we put off the old man, and by showing love we put on the 
new. But no man can be continent unless God endow him 
with the gift ;* nor is God's love shed abroad in our hearts by 
our own selves, but by the Holy Ghost that is given to us? 
This, however, takes place day after day in those who advance 
by willing, believing, and praying, and who, * forgetting those 
things which are behind, reach forth unto those things which 
are before." For the reason why the law inculcates all these 
precepts is, that when a man has failed in fulfilling them, he 
may not be swollen with pride, and so exalt himself, but may 
in very weariness betake himself to grace. Thus the law ful- 
fils its office as “schoolmaster,” so terrifying the man as “ to 
lead him to Christ," to give Him his love.’ 

Cuar. vi.—The twelfth breviate. (The lust of the flesh nothing else than the 

desire of sin.) 

* Again the question arises, how it is that man is unable 
to live without sin,—by his will, or by nature? If by nature, 
it is not sin; if by his will, then will can very easily be 
changed by will" We answer by reminding him how he 
ought to reflect on the extreme presumption of saying— not 
simply that it is possible (for this no doubt is undeniable, 
when God's grace comes in aid), but—that it is “very easy" 
for will to be changed by will Whereas the apostle says, 
“The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the 
flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye 
do not the things that ye would.”* He does not say, “ These 
are contrary the one to the other, so that ye will not do the 
things that ye can," but, *so that ye do not the things that 

1 Deut, vi. 5. ? Rom. xii. 2. 3 Rom. xii. 2. * Wisd. viii. 21. 

5 Rom. v. 5. $ Phil, ni 18; 7 Gal. iii. 24. 8 Gal. v. 17. 

4 X 


322 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. VI. 





ye would?! How happens it, then, that the lust of the flesh 
(which of course is culpable and vicious, and is nothing else 
than a desire for sin, as to which the same apostle instructs 
us not to let it *reign in our mortal body ;"? by which ex- 
pression he shows us plainly enough that that must have an 
existence in our mortal body which must not be permitted to 
hold a dominion in it ;—how happens it, I say, that such lust 
of the flesh) has not been changed by that will, which the 
apostle clearly implied the existence of in his words, “So 
that ye do not the things that ye would [or wiil],” if so be 
that the will can so easily be changed by will? Not that we, 
indeed, by this argument throw the blame upon the nature 
either of the soul or of the body, which God created, and 
| which is wholly good; but we say that it has been vitiated 
by man's own will, and cannot be made whole without the 
grace of God. 

(18.) The thirteenth breviate. 

' “The next question we have to ask is this: If man cannot 

exist without sin, whose fault is it,——man's own, or some one's 
else? If man's own, in what way'is he to blame for not 
being that which he is unable to be?" We reply, that man © 
is to blame for not being without sin entirely on this account, 
because it has by man's sole will come to pass that he has 
come into sueh a necessity as cannot be overcome by man's 
sole will. 


(14.) The fourteenth breviate. (Why the law is called **the strength of sin.") 

* Again the question must be asked, If man's nature is 
good, as nobody but Marcion or Manicheus will venture to 
deny, in what way is it good if it is impossible for it to be 
free from evil? For that all sin is evil who can gainsay ?" 
We answer, that man's nature is both good, and is also able to 
be free from evil Therefore do we earnestly pray, * Deliver 
us from evil"? This deliverance, indeed, is not fully wrought, 
so long as the soul is oppressed by the body, which is hasten- 
ing to corruption This process, however, is being effected 
by grace through faith, so that it may be said by and by, 


l"I»z uà d dv OAnre, cadre moifiTt. ? Rom. vi. 12. 
? 
3 Matt. vi. 13. * Wisd. ix. 15. 








CHAP. VIL] THE VITIATION AND DELIVERANCE OF NATURE. 323 





*( death, where is thy struggle? Where is thy sting, O 
death? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is 
the law ;"! because the law by prohibiting sin only increases 
the desire for it, unless the Holy Ghost spreads abroad that 
love, which shall then be full and perfect, when we shall see 
face to face. 

(15.) The fifteenth breviate. 

* And this, moreover, has to be said: God is certainly 
| righteous; this cannot be denied. But God imputes every sin 
| to man. This too, I suppose, must be allowed, that whatever 
shall not be imputed as sin is not sin. Now if there is any 
sin which is unavoidable, how is God said to be righteous, 
when He is supposed to impute to any man [as sin] that 
which cannot be avoided?” We reply, that long ago was it 
declared in opposition to the proud, “ Blessed is the man to 
whom the Lord imputeth not sin"? Now He does not im- 
pute it to those who say to Him in faith, * Forgive us our 
debts, as we forgive our debtors"? And justly does He 
withhold this imputation, because that is just which He says: 
“With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you 
 again."* That, however, is sin in which there is either not 
the love which ought to be, or where the love is less than it 
ought to be)— whether it be avoidable by the human will or 
inevitable; because when avoidable, the man's present will 
does it, [or] his past will did it; and yet it can be avoided,— 
not, however, when the proud wili is lauded, but when the 
humble one is assisted. 


CHAP. vil.—(16.) Zhe sixteenth breviate. 

After all these disputations, their author introduces himself 
in person as arguing with another person, and represents him- 
self as under examination, and as being addressed by his exa- 
miner: “Show me the man who is without sin.” He answers: 
“JT show you one who might be without sin.” His examiner 
then says to him: * And who is he?” He answers promptly 
enough: “You are the man.” ' “But if" he adds, * you were 


11 Cor. xv. 35, 36. S PR 6.6.05 2. 3 Matt. vi. 12. * Matt. vii. 2. 
5 See above, in his work De Spiritu et Litterd, 64; and De Naturd et 
Gratid, 45. 


324 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. VII. 








to say, ‘I, at any rate, cannot live without sin, then you 
must answer me, ‘ Whose fault is that?’ If you then were 
to say, ‘My own fault you must be further asked, ‘ And 
how is it your fault, if, [as you say,] you cannot live without 
sin?’?” He again represents himself as under examination, 
and thus accosted: * Are you really yourself without sin, who 
allege that a man can live without sin?” And he answers [by 
retorting a question :] * Whose fault is it that I am not with- 
out sin? But if” continues he, “he had said in reply, * The 
fault is your own;' then the answer would be, ' How my 
fault, when I am unable to live without sin?’” Now our 
answer to all this running argument is, that no controversy 
ought to have been raised between them about such words 
as these; because he nowhere ventures to affirm that a man 
(either any one else, or himself) r$ without sin, but he merely - 
said in reply that he COULD BE,—a position which we do not 
ourselves deny. Only the question arises, when this possi- 
bility accrues, and through whom ? If it occurs at the present 

time, then by no faithful soul which is enclosed within the 
body of this death must this prayer be offered, or such words 
as these be spoken, “Forgive as our debts, as we forgive our 
debtors,"! since in holy baptism all past debts have been 
already forgiven. But whoever tries to persuade us that 
such a prayer is not proper for faithful members of Christ, 
does in fact acknowledge nothing else than that he is not 
himself a Christian. If, again, it is through himself that a 
man is able to live without sin, then did Christ die in vain. 
But “Christ is not dead in vain.” No man, therefore, can be 
without sin, even if he wish it, unless he be assisted by the 
erace of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And that this 
perfection may be attained, there is even now a training 
learried on in growing [Christians,] and there will be by all 
|means a completion made, after the confliet with death is 
| spent, and love, which is now cherished by the operation of 
faith and hope, shall be perfected in the fruition of sight and 
possession. 

1 Matt. vi. 12. 


CHAP. VIII] DEPARTURE FROM, AND LIBERATION OF, THE BODY. 325 





Cuap. vitt.—(17.) It is one thing to depart from the body, another thing to be 
liberated from the body of this death ; the recompense of eternal life shall 
be bestowed on no man who has not in the present life merited it. 


He next proposes to establish his point by the testimony of 
Holy Scripture. Let us carefully observe what kind of defence 
he makes, “There are passages,” says he, “ which. go to show 
that man is commanded to live without sin.” Now our answer 
to this is: Whether such commands are given is not at all the 
point in question, for the fact is clear enough ; but whether the 
thing which is evidently commanded be itself at all capable of 
accomplishment in the body of this death, wherein “ the flesh 
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, so 
that we cannot do the things that we would.”* Now from this 
body of death not every one is liberated who ends the present 
life, but only he who in this life has received grace, and given 
proof of not receiving it in vain by spending his days in good 
works. For it is plainly one thing to depart from the body, 
which all men are obliged to do in the last day of their present 
life, and another to be delivered from the body of this death, 
a liberation which God's grace alone, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ, imparts to His faithful saints. It is after this life, 
indeed, that the reward of perfection is bestowed, but only 
upon those by whom in their present life has been acquired 
the merit of such a recompense. For no one, after going 
hence, shall arrive at fulness of righteousness, unless, whilst 
here, he shall have run his course by hungering and thirsting 
after it. “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after 
righteousness ; for they shall be filled.” ? 


(18.) The righteousness of this life comprehended in three parts,—fasting, alms- 
giving, and prayer ; an enemy must be forgiven if he repents and asks 
forgiveness. From the Lord’s Prayer we find that the faithful are not 
here perfect, without sin. 

As long, then, as we are “absent from the Lord, we walk 
. by faith, not by sight;"? whence it is said, ^ The just shall 
hlive by his faith.”* Our righteousness in this pilgrimage of 
|! absence is such, that we now press forward to ‘that perfect 
| and plenary righteousness in which love shall be fulfilled. and 
perfected in the sight of its glory; [and this we accomplish] 

I Gal. y. 44. ? Matt. v. 6. 3 2 Cor. v. 6. * Hab. ii. 4. 


326 ON MAN’S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [ CHAP. VIII. 





in the rectitude and perfection of our actual course, by “ keep- 
ing under our body and bringing it into subjection,"! by 
doing our alms cheerfully and heartily, while bestowing kind- 
nesses and forgiving the trespasses which have been committed 
against us, and by “continuing instant in prayer ; and 
doing all this with sound doctrine, whereon are built a right 
faith, a firm hope, and. a pure charity. This is now our 
righteousness, in which we pass through our course hungering 
and thirsting after the perfect and plenary righteousness, in 
order that we may after all be satisfied therewith. Therefore 
our Lord in the Gospel ue saying, * Take heed that ye do 
not your righteousness” before men, to be seen of them,” 4 
that we measure not our course of life by the limit of human 
glory) goes on to expound the righteousness itself; but He 
instances only these three [constituents] of it, E aes alms, 
and prayers. Now in the fasting He indicates aie entire 
subjugation of the body; in the alms, all kindness of will and 
deed, either by giving or forgiving ; and in prayers He implies 
all the rules of a holy desire. Now, although by the subjuga- 
tion of the body a check is given to that concupiscence, which 
ought not only to be bridled, but to be put altogether out of 
existence (and which will not be found at all in that state of 
perfect righteousness, where sin shall be absolutely excluded), 
yet it often exerts its immoderate desire even in the use of 
things which are allowable and right. Even in that real 
beneficence in which the just man consults his neighbour's 
welfare, things are sometimes done which are prejudicial, 
although it was thought that they would be advantageous. 
Sometimes, too, doch infirmity, when the amount of the 
kindness and trouble Ud is expended either falls short of 
the necessities of the objects, or is of little use under the 
circumstances, then there steals over us a disappointment 
which tarnishes that “cheerfulness” which secures to the 
" giver" the approbation of God? This trail of sadness, how- 


1 1 Cor. ix. 27. * Rom, sii. 42: 

? For this reading of Sixesocdvny instead of irsnuoodyyy there is high ms. 
authority. It is admitted also by Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, 
and Alford, and in the margin of our Bibles. 

* Matt. vi. 1. $2: Cob 1x. f. 


CHAP. VIII] THE GREATEST GRACE IS LOVE. 327 





ever, is the greater or the less, as each man has made more or 
less progress in his kindly purposes. If, then, these con- 
siderations, and such as these, be duly weighed, we are only 
right when we say in our prayers, * Forgive us our debts, 
as we also forgive our debtors.” But what we say in our 
prayers we must carry into act, even to loving our very 
enemies; or if any one who is still a babe in Christ fails as 
yet to reach this point, he must at any rate, whenever one who 
has trespassed against him repents and craves his pardon, 
exercise forgiveness from the bottom of his heart, if he would 
have his heavenly Father listen to his prayer. 

(19.) The commandment of love shall be perfectly fulfilled in the life to come. 
The lusting of the flesh means that the soul itself lusts in a carnal manner. 
And in this prayer, unless we choose to be contentious, 

there is placed before our view a mirror of sufficient bright- 

ness in which to behold the life of the righteous, who live by 
faith, and finish their course, although they are not without 
sin. Therefore they say, “Forgive us,” because they have 
not yet arrived at the end of their course. Hence the apostle 
says, “ Not as if I had already attained, either were already 
perfect... . Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: 
but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which. are 
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I 
press toward the mark, for the prize of the hich calling of God 
in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be 
thus minded"? In other words, let us, as many as are 
running our course to perfection, be thus resolved, that, being 
not yet perfected, we pursue our course to perfection along 
the way by which we have thus far. run perfectly, in order 
that “when that which is perfect is come, then that which is 
in part may be done away ;"^ that is, may cease to be but in 
part any longer, but become whole and complete. For to 
faith and hope shall sueceed at once the very substance itself, 
no longer to be believed in and hoped for, but to be seen 
and grasped. Love, however, which is the greatest among 
the three, is not to be superseded, but increased and fulfilled,—— 
contemplating in full vision what it used to see by faith, and 
acquiring in actual fruition what it once only embraced in 
1 Matt. vi. 12. ? Phil. iii. 12-15. 3 ] Cor, xiii. 10. 


328 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. IX. 





hope. Then in all this plenitude of charity wil? be fulfilled 
the commandment, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.”? 
So long, indeed, as there remains [in our present state] any 
remnant of the lust of the flesh, to be kept in check by the 
rein of continence, God is by no means loved with all one’s 
soul. For the flesh does not lust without the soul; although 
it is the flesh which is said to lust, because the soul lusts by 
means of the flesh? In that perfect state the just man shall 
‘live absolutely without any sin, since there will be in his 
| members no law warring against the law of his mind? but 
wholly will he love God, with all his heart, with all his soul, 
and with all his mind,* which is the first and chief command- 
ment. For why should not such perfection be enjoined on 
,man, although in this life nobody may attain to it? The 
course is a right one, even if it be not known whereunto it 
must finally run. How, indeed, could it be known at all, 
unless it were pointed out in such precepts?° Let us there- 
fore “so run that we may obtain" For all who run 
rghtly will obtain,—not as in the contest of the theatre, 
. where all indeed run, but only one wins the prize Let us, 
[I say,] run, believing, hoping, longing for [the crown]; let us 
run, subjugating the body, doing alms cheerfully and heartily, 
—ain giving kindnesses and forgiving injuries ; [let us runj] 
praying that our strength may be helped as we run; and let 
us so listen to the commandments which urge us to perfection, 
as not to neglect running towards the fulness of charity. 


CHAP. 1x.—(20.) Who may be said to walk without spot ; damnable and 
venial sins. 


Having premised these remarks, let us carefully attend to 
the passages which he whom we are answering has produced, 
as we would ourselves have quoted them. “In Deuteronomy 
[it is written,] “Thou shalt be perfect before the Lord thy 
God.” * Again, in the same book, * There shall not be an im- 


! Mente. The Septuagint, however, like the Hebrew, has 3éwzgsos. A.V. 
"thy might." Comp. Deut. vi. 5 with Matt. xxii. 37. 


2 Carnaliter, 3 Rom. vii. 23. 4 Matt. xxii. 37. 
5 See above in Augustine’s De Spiritu et Literu, 64. 
61 Cor. ix. 23. 7] Cor. ix 24, 9 Deut. xviii. 13. 





CHAP. IX.] THE FUTURE STATE SINLESS. 329 





perfect man ! among the sons of Israel"? In like manner the 
' Saviour says in the Gospel, “Be ye perfect, even as your 
Father which is in heaven is perfect"? So the apostle, in 
' his second Epistle to the Corinthians, says: “ Finally, brethren, 
farewell Be perfect.”* Again, to the Colossians he writes: 
“ Warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, 
that we may present every man perfect in Christ.”° And so 
to the Philippians: “ Do all things without murmurings and 
disputings, that ye may be blameless, and harmless, as the 
immaculate sons of God.”® In like manner to the Ephesians 
he writes: * Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in 
heavenly places in Christ; according as He hath chosen us in 
Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be 
holy and blameless before Him."7 Then again to the Colos- 
sians he says in another passage: “And you, that were some- 
time alienated, and enemies in your mind by wicked works, 
yet now hath He reconciled in the body of His flesh through 
death; [therefore] present yourselves? holy and unblameable 
and unreprovable in His sight"? In the same strain, he 
says to the Ephesians: * That He might present to Himself 
a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such 
thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.” So 
,in his first Epistle to the Corinthians he says: “Be ye 
' sober, and righteous, and sin not.”" So again in the Epistle 
of St. Peter it is written: “ Wherefore gird up the loins of 
your mind, be sober, and hope to the end, for the grace that 
is offered to you: . . . as obedient children, not fashioning 
yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance : 
but as He who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all 
manner of conversation; because it is written,” Be ye holy; 
for I am holy"? Whence blessed David likewise says: 
* O Lord, who shall sojourn in Thy tabernacle, or who shall 


+ Augustine’s word is inconsummatus. The Septuagint term r:ascxduevos 


(which properly signifies complete, perfect) comes to mean one initiated into the 
mysteries of idolatrous worship. 


? Deut. xxiii. 17 (Sept. ). 3 Matt. v. 48. 42 Cor. xiii. 11. 
5 Co]. i. 28. 8 Phil. ii. 14, 15. 7 Eph. i. 3, 4. 
5 Exhibete vos. 9 CoL i; 21, 22. 10 Eph. v. 26, 27. 


I Iortoxv 04 1? Ley. xix. 2. ie 1-Pet. d. 18-106: 


330 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. x. 





. rest on Thy holy mountain? He that walketh without blame, 
and worketh righteousness.” ! And in another passage: “I 
shall be blameless with Him.”? And yet again: “ Blessed are 
the blameless in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.” ® 
To the same effect it is written in Solomon: * The Lord loveth 
holy hearts, and all they that are blameless are acceptable unto 
Him.” * Now some of these passages exhort men who are 
running their course that they do it perfectly ; others refer to 
the end thereof, that men may reach forward to it as they 
run. That man, however, is not unreasonably said to walk 
blamelessly, who has not yet indeed reached the end of his 
journey, but who is pressing on towards the end in a blame- 
less manner, free from damnable sins, and at the same time 
not neglecting to cleanse by almsgiving such sins as are 
venial. For the way in which we walk, that is, the road by 
which we reach perfection, is cleansed by holy prayer. That, 
moreover, is a holy prayer in which we say in truth, “ Forgive 
us, as we ourselves show forgiveness"? So that, as there is 
nothing censured when blame is not imputed, we may hold on 
our course to perfection without censure, in a word, blame- 
lessly ; and in this perfect state, when we arrive at it at last, 
we shall find that there is absolutely nothing which requires 
cleansing by forgiveness. 


Cuar. x.—(21.) To whom God's commandments are grievous ; and to whom, 
not. Why Scripture says that God’s commandments are not grievous ; a 
commandment is a proof of the freedom of man’s will; prayer is a proof 
of grace. 

He next quotes passages to show that God’s command- 
ments are not grievous. But who can be ignorant of the 
fact that, since the universal commandment is love (for * the 
end of the commandment is charity," and “love is the fulfil- 
ling of the law "?), whatever is accomplished by the operation 
of love, and not of fear, is not grievous? They, however, 
experience toil and labour in the commandments of God, who 
try to fulfil them by fearing. “ But perfect love casteth out 


fear ;”* and, in respect of the burden of the commandment, it 
UPS xv b 2, ? Ps. xviii. 23 (Sept.). 3 Ps, cxix. 1 (Sept.). 


* Prov. xi. 20. 5 Matt. vi. 12. 6 1 Tim. i. 8. 
7 Rom. xiii. 10. 8 1 John iv. 18. 


CHAP. X] HOW GOD'S LAWS ARE NOT GRIEVOUS. 331 





not only takes off the pressure of its heavy weight, but it 
actually lifts it up as if on wings. In order, however, that 
this charity may be possessed, even as far as it can possibly 
be possessed in the body of this death, the free exercise of . 
our own will avails but little, unless it be helped by God’s 
grace through our Lord Jesus Christ; for as it must again 
and again be stated, it is “shed abroad in our hearts,” not by 
our own selves, but “by the Holy Ghost which is given unto 
us.”* And for no other reason does Holy Scripture insist on 
the truth that God’s commandments are not grievous, than 
this, that the soul which finds them grievous may understand 
that it has not yet received those resources [of grace] which 
make the Lord’s commandments to be such as they are com- 
mended to us as being, even gentle and pleasant; and that 
it may pray in the deep earnestness of sincerity to obtain the 
gift of a ready obedience.” For the man who says, “ Let 
my heart be blameless [in Thy statutes ;"]? and, * Order Thou 
my steps according to Thy word: and let not any iniquity 
have dominion over me;"* and, * Thy will be done in earth, 
as it is in heaven ;"? and, “Lead us not into temptation;”® 
and other prayers of a like purport, which it would be too 
long to particularize, does in effect offer up a prayer for ability 
to keep God's commandments. Neither, indeed, on the one 
hand, would any injunctions be laid upon us to keep them, if 
our own will had not anything to do in the matter; nor, on 
the other hand, would there be any room for prayer, if our will 
were alone sufficient. God’s commandments, therefore, are 
_commended to us as being not grievous, in order that he to 
"whom they are burdensome may understand that he has not 
as yet received the gift which removes their grievousness ; 
and that he may not think that he is really performing them, 
when he so keeps them that they are grievous to him. For 
it is a cheerful giver whom God loves? Nevertheless, when 
a man finds God’s commandments grievous, let him not be 
broken down by indulging despair; let him rather oblige him- 
self to seek, to ask earnestly, and to knock [at mercy’s gate 
for grace]. 


1 Rom. v. 5. ? Facilitatis. 3 Ps. exix. 80. 4 Ps. cxix. 138. 
5 Matt. vi. 10. 5 Matt. vi. 13. 7 2 Cor. ix. 7. 


352 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. (CHAP. X. 





(22. He afterwards adduces those passages which repre- 
sent God as recommending His own commandments as not 
grievous: let us now attend to their testimony. “Because,” 
says he, * God's commandments are not only not impossible, 
but they are not even grievous. In Deuteronomy [we read]: 
*The Lord thy God will again turn and rejoice over thee for 
good, as He rejoiced over thy fathers, if ye shall hearken to 
the voice of the Lord your God, to keep His commandments, 
and His ordinances, and His judgments, written in the book 
of this law ; if thou turn to the Lord thy God with all thine 
heart,and with all thy soul. For this command, which I give 
thee this day, is not grievous, neither is it far from thee: it 
is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who will ascend 
into heaven, and obtain it for us, that we may hear and do 
it? neither is it beyond the sea, that thou shouldest say, 
Who will cross over the sea, and obtain it for us, that we 
may hear and do it? The word is close to thee, in thy 
mouth, and in thine heart, and in thine hands to do it”! In 
the Gospel likewise the Lord says: ‘Come unto me, all ye 
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek 
and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light”? So also in 
the Epistle of Saint John it is written: ‘This is the love of 
God, that we keep His commandments: and His command- 
ments are not grievous."? After hearing these testimonies out 
of the law, and the gospel, and the epistles, let us edify our- 
selves for that grace which those persons do not understand, 
who, * being ignorant of God's righteousness, and wishing to 
establish their own righteousness, have not submitted them- 
selves unto the righteousness of God.”* Now, since they 
understand not the passage of Deuteronomy in the sense that 
the Apostle Paul quoted it,—that “with the heart men be- 
lieve unto righteousness, and with their mouth make confes- 
sion unto salvation;"? since “they that be whole need not a 
physician, but they that are sick,’°—they certainly ought (by 
that very passage of the Apostle John which he quoted last 


1 Deut. xxx. 9-14. ? Matt. xi. 28-30. 3 | John v. 8. 
* Rom. x. 8. 5 Rom. x. 10. 6 Matt, ix. 12. 


CHAP. XI.] PELAGIAN HERMENEUTICS NEGATIVE. 333 


PAS, 





to this effect: * This is the love of God, that we keep His 
commandments; and His commandments are not grievous " !) 
to be admonished that God's commandments are never bur- 
densome to God's love, which is shed abroad in our hearts 
only by the Holy Ghost, not by the power of man's free will, 
by attributing to which more than they ought, they are igno- 
rant of God's righteousness. This love, however, shall then be 
made perfect, when all slavish fear of punishment shall be 
cut off. 

Cuap. x1.—(23.) Passages of Scripture which, when objected against him by the 

Catholics, Calestius endeavours to elude by other passages ; the first passage. 

After this he adduced the passages which are usually 
quoted against them. He does not attempt to meet these 
passages, but, by alleging what seem to be contrary state- 
ments, he has rendered his questions more difficult to solve? 
* For," says he, “there are passages of Scripture which are to 
be alleged in opposition to those who ignorantly suppose that 
they are able to destroy the liberty of the will, or the possibi- 
lity of not sinning, by the authority of Scripture. For,” he 
adds, “they are in the habit of quoting against us what holy 
Job said: ‘Who is pure from uncleanness? Not one; even 
if he be an infant of only one day upon the earth"? Then 
he proceeds to give a sort of answer to this passage by help of 
other quotations ; as when Job himself said: “ For although I 
am a righteous and blameless man, I have become a subject 
for mockery,"C— not understanding that a man may be called 
righteous, who has gone so far towards perfection in righteous- 
ness as to be very near it; and this we do not deny to have 
been in the power of many even in this life, when they walk 
in it by faith. 

(24.) T'o be without sin, and to be without blame—how differing. 

The same thing is affirmed in another passage, which he 
has quoted immediately afterwards, as spoken by the same 
Job: “ Behold, I am very near my judgment, and I know that 
I shall be found righteous.”” Now this is the judgment of 
which it is said in another scripture: “And He shall bring 
forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judgment as the 


11 John v. 3. 2 Questiones arctius illigavit. 
3 Job xiv. 4, 5 (Sept.). 4 Job xii. 4 (Sept.). 5 Job xiii. 18 (Sept.). 
p p P 


334 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. XI. 





noonday.” But he does not say, I am already there; but, 
“T am very near" If, indeed, the judgment of his which he 
meant was not that which he would himself exercise, but that 
whereby he was to be judged at the last day, then in such 
judgment all will be found righteous who with sincerity 
pray: “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”? 
For it is through this forgiveness that they will be found 
righteous; on this account that whatever sins they have here 
incurred, they have blotted out by their deeds of charity. 
Whence the Lord says: “Give alms [of such things as ye 
have]; and, behold, all things are clean unto you?^? For by 
and by it shall be said to the righteous, when about to enter 
into their promised kingdom: “I was an hungered, and ye 
gave me meat," and so forth. However, it is one thing to 
be in this life without sin, which could only be predicated of 
the Only-begotten, and another thing to be without censure, 
which might be said of many just persons even in the pre- 
sent life; for there is a certain criterion of a good man’s life, 
according to which even in our human conversation there 
could no just blame be possibly laid against him. For who 
can fairly find fault with the man who harbours no ill-will 
against any, and who faithfully does good to all he can, and 
never cherishes a wish to avenge himself on any man who 
does him wrong, so that he can truly say, “As we forgive 
our debtors ?" And yet by the very fact that he truly says, 
“ Forgive, as we also forgive,” he plainly admits that he is not 
without sin. 

(25.) Hence the force of [Job's] statement: * There was no 
injustice in my hands, but my prayer was pure"* For the 
purity of his prayer arose from this circumstance, that it was 
not improper for him to ask forgiveness in prayer, when he 
really bestowed forgiveness himself. 


(26.) Why Job was so great a sufferer. 
And when he says concerning the Lord, * For many bruises 
hath He inflicted upon me without a cause"? observe that his 
words are not, He hath inflicted none with a cause; but, 


1 Matt. vi. 12. 2 Luke xi. 41. 3 Matt. xxv. 35. 
* Job xvi. 18 (Sept.). 5 Job ix. 17. 


———————————~S 


CS 








CHAP. XI.] TRIAL OF JOB’S PATIENCE. 920 





“many without a cause.” For it was not because of his 
manifold sins that these many bruises were inflicted on him, 
but in order to make trial of his patience. In respect of his 
sins, indeed, while acknowledging in another passage that he 
was certainly not free from them, he yet judges that he ought 
to have suffered less. 


(27.) Who may be said to keep.the ways of the Lord ; what it is to decline and 
depart from the ways of the Lord. 

Then again, as for what [Job] says, * For I have kept His 
ways, and have not turned aside from His commandments, nor 
will I depart from them,"! [let us remember that] he keeps 
God's ways who does not so turn aside as to forsake them, 
but makes progress by running his course therein; although, 
weak as he is, he sometimes stumbles or falls, onward, how- 
ever, he still goes, sinning less and less until he reaches the per- 
fect state in which he will sin no more. For in no other way 
could he make progress, except by keeping God's command- 
ments. The man, indeed, who declines from these, and be- 
comes an apostate at last, is certainly not he who, although 
he has sin, yet never ceases to persevere in fighting against it, 
until he arrives at the home where there shall remain no more 
conflict with death. Well now, it is in our present struggle 
therewith that we are clothed with the righteousness in which 
we here live by faith,—clothed with it as it were with a 
breastplate.” Judgment also we take on ourselves; and even 
when itis against us, we turn it round to our own behalf; 
for we become our own accusers and condemn our sins: 
whence that scripture which says, “The righteous man 
accuses himself at the beginning of his speech"? Hence also 
[Job] says: *I put on righteousness, and clothed myself with 
judgment like a mantle.”* Our vesture at present no doubt 
is wont to be armour for war rather than garments of peace, 
while concupiscence has still to be subdued; it will be 
different by and by, when our last enemy death shall be 
destroyed,’ and our righteousness shall be full and complete, 
without an enemy to molest us more. 


4 Job xxiii. 11, 12 (Sept.). 3 Eph. vi. 14. 3 Prov. xviii. 17 (Sept.). 
4 Job xxix. 14 (Sept.). 5 1 Cor. xv. 26. 


336 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. XI. 





(28.) When our heart may be said not to reproach us ; when good is to be 
perfected. 


Furthermore, concerning these words of Job, * My heart 
shall not reproach me so long as I live"! [we remark,] that 
it is in this present life of ours, in which we live by faith, 
that our heart does not reproach us, when the same faith 
whereby we believe unto righteousness does not neglect to 
rebuke our sin. On this principle the apostle says: “The 
good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, 
that I do"? Now it is a good thing to avoid concupiscence, 
and this good the just man would do, who lives by faith ;? 
and still he does what he hates, because he indulges con- 
cupiscence, although “he goes not after his lusts,"* which if 
he has ever done, he has himself really done it at the moment, 
so as to yield to, and acquiesce in, and obey the desire of sin. 
His heart then reproaches him, because it is even zt, and not 
his sin which dwelleth in him, that is the rebuker. But 
whensoever he suffers not sin to reign in his mortal body to 
obey it in the lusts thereof? and yields not his members as 
instruments of unrighteousness unto sin sin no doubt is 
inherent in his members, but it does not reign, because its 
desires are not obeyed. Therefore, while he does that which 
he would not,—in other words, while he wishes not to lust, 
but still lusts,—he consents to the law that it is good:7 for 
what the law would, that he also wishes; because it is his 
desire not to indulge concupiscence, and the law expressly 
says, “Thou shalt not covet.’® Now in that he wishes what 
the law also would have done, he no doubt consents to the 
law: but still he lusts, because he is not without sin so iss 
however, no longer himself that does the thing, but the sin 
which dwells within him. Hence it is that “his heart does 
not reproach him so long as he lives ;” that is, so long as he has 
faith, because the just man lives by faith, so that his faith is 
his very life. He knows, to be sure, that in himself dwells 
nothing good,—even in his flesh, which is the dwelling-place 
of sin. By not consenting, however, to it, he lives by faith, 
wherewith he also calls upon God to help him in his contest 


1 Job xxvii. 6. ? Rom. vii. 15. 3 Hab. ii. 4. * Eeclus. xviii. 90. 
5 Rom. vi. 12. ' 6 Rom. vi. 13. 7 Rom. vii. 16. 8 Ex. xx. 17. 








CHAP. XII.] JOB MISUNDERSTOOD. 337 





against sin. Moreover, there is present to him the will that. 
no sin at all should be in him, but then how to carry out this 
good wish is beyond his present power. It is not the mere 
doing of a good thing that is not present to him, but the 
perfect accomplishment of it. For in the fact that he yields 
no consent [to evil,] he does a good thing; he does good 
again, when he hates his own lust; he does good also, in not 
ceasing to give alms; whenever, too, he forgives the man who 
sins against him, he does a good thing; in the very fact, 
moreover, of his asking forgiveness for his own trespasses,— 
sincerely avowing in his petition that he also forgives those 
who trespass against himself, and praying that he may not be 
led into temptation, but be delivered from evil, —he does a good 
thing. But how to give full effect to the good is not in his 
present power; it will be, however, in that final state, when 
the concupiscence which dwells in his members shall exist no 
more. His heart, therefore, does not reproach him, when it 
reprehends the sin which dwells in his members; nor has it 
the unbelief which it censures in him. Thus *so long as he 
lives,’—that is, so long as he has faith, —he is neither reproached 
by his own heart, nor convinced of not being without sin. 
And Job himself acknowledges as much as this concerning 
himself, when he says, “Not one of my sins hath escaped 
Thee; Thou hast sealed up my transgressions in a bag, and 
marked if I have done iniquity unawares"! With regard, then, 
to the passages which he has adduced from the book of holy 
Job, we have shown to the best of our ability in what sense 
they ought to be taken. He, however, has failed to explain the 
meaning of the words which he has himself quoted from the 
same Job: “Who then is pure from uncleanness? Not one; 
even if he be an infant of only one day upon the earth.” * 


Crap. x1t.—(29.) The second passage. Who may be said to abstain from 
every evil thing. 


«They are in the habit of next quoting,” says he, “ the 
passage: ‘Every man is a liar'"? But here again he offers 
no solution of words which are quoted against himself even 
by himself; all he does is to mention other apparently oppo- 
site passages before persons who are unacquainted with 

Ljob xiv. 16, 17. 2 Job xiv. 4, 5 (Sept.). 3 Ps. exv. 2 (Sept.). 
4 Y 


338 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. XII. 





the sacred Scriptures, and thus to divide the word of God 
contentiously. This is what he says: “We tell them in 
answer, how in the book of Numbers it is said, ‘Man is 
true’! While of holy Job this eulogy is read: ‘There was 
a certain man in the land of Ausis, whose name was Job; 
that man was true, blameless, righteous, and godly, abstaining 
from every evil thing'"? Iam surprised that he has brought 
forward this passage, which says that Job “ abstained from every 
evil thing,’ wishing it to mean “abstained from every sin ;” 
because he has argued already ^ that sin is not a real thing, 
but an act. He should recollect that, even if it is an act, it 
may still be called a real thing. That man, however, abstains 
from every evil thing, who either never consents to the sin, 
which is always with him, or, if sometimes hard pressed by it, 
is never oppressed by it; just as the wrestling champion, who, 
although he is sometimes caught in a fierce grapple, does not 
for all that lose the prowess which constitutes him the better 
man. We read, indeed, of a blameless man, of one who deserves 
no censure; but we never read of a sinless man, except in the 
case of the Son of man, who is also the only-begotten Son of 
God. 

(80.) ** Every man is a liar,” owing to himself alone ; but ** every man is true,” 

by help only of the grace of God. 

* Moreover," says he, “ in Job himself it is said: * And he 
maintained the wonderful character of a true man.’* Again 
we read in Solomon, touching wisdom: ‘ Men that are liars 
cannot remember her, but men of truth shall be found in 
her” ® Again in the Apocalypse: ‘And in their mouth was 
found no guile, for they are without fault'"5 To all these 
statements we reply with an admonition to our opponents, 
how that a man (who is, owing to himself no doubt, a liar) 
can only be called true when instructed by the grace and 
truth of God. Whence it is said: “Every man is a liar." 

l]f this refer to Num. xxiv. 3, 15 (as the editions mark it), the quotation 


is most inexact. The Septuagint words 6 Zwpeses 6 &Anbiwas ópzv is not a pro- 
position equal to ‘‘homo veraz," as an antithesis to the proposition ‘‘ omnis 
homo mendazx.” 

2 Job i. 1 (Sept.). 3 See above, (1.) 

* Et miraculum tenuit veracis hominis. [We cannot verify this quotation.] 

5 Ecclus. xv. 8 [for the first clause]. 9 Rev. xiv. 5. 7T Ps. exv. 2 (Sept.). 


CHAP. XIIL] ^ PAST DARKNESS, PRESENT LIGHT. 339 





As for the passage also which he has quoted in reference to 
wisdom, when it is said, “Men of truth shall be found in 
her," we must observe that it is undoubtedly not “ 4n her,” but 
in themselves that men shall be found liars. Just as the case 
stands in respect of another passage: “ Ye were sometimes 
darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord"! When [the 
apostle, in the former clause,| said, “Ye were darkness,” he 
did not add, “in the Lord;” [in the latter clause,] however, 
after saying, “Ye are now light,” he expressly added the 
phrase, “in the Lord," for they could not possibly be “light” 
in themselves; “he therefore who glorieth must glory in the 
Lord"? The *faultless" ones, indeed, in the Apocalypse, are 
so called because “no guile was found in their mouth." ? 
They did not say they had no sin: if they had made such a 
pretension, they would deceive themselves, and the truth 
would not be in them;* and if the truth were not in 
them, guile and untruth would be found in their mouth. If, 
however, to avoid odium, they said they were not without 
sin, although they were sinless, then this very insincerity 
would be a lie, and the character given of them would be 
untrue: “In their mouth was found no guile [or lie].” Hence 
indeed * they are without fault;" for as they have forgiven 
those who have done them wrong, so are they purified by 
God's forgiveness of themselves. Observe now how we have 
to the best of our power explained in what sense the quota- 
tions he has in his own behalf. advanced ought to be under- 
stood. But how the passage, “Every man is a liar,” is to be 
interpreted, he on his part has altogether omitted to explain; 
nor is an explanation within his power, without a correction 
of the error which makes him believe that man can be true 
without the help of God's grace, and merely by virtue of his 
own free will. 

Cuar. xi.—(21.) Te third passage. It is one thing to depart, and another 


thing to have departed, from all sin. ** There is none that doeth good, "—of 
whom this is to be understood. 


He accordingly propounded another question, as we shall 
proceed to show; but he failed to solve it, nay, he rather 
rendered it more complex and difficult, by first stating the 

Eph. v, 8. *1 Cori. 9L 3 Rev; xiv. 5. 4^ ] John i. 8. 


340 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. XIII. 





testimony that had been quoted against him: “There is none 
that doeth good, no, not one ?! and then resorting to seem- 
ingly contrary passages to show that there are persons who 
do good. This he succeeded, no doubt, in doing. It is, how- 
ever, one thing for a man not to do good, and another thing 
not to be without sin, although he at the same time may do 
many good things. The passages, therefore, which he adduces 
are not really contrary to the statement that no person is 
without sin in this life. He does not, for his own part, 
explain in what sense it is declared that “there is none that 
doeth good, no, not one.” These are his words: “ Holy David 
indeed says, ‘Hope thou in the Lord and be doing good. "? 
But this is a precept, and not an accomplished fact; and such 
a precept as is never kept by those of whom it is said, “ There 
is none that doeth good, no, not one" He adds: “ Holy 
Tobit also said, ‘ Fear not, my son, that we have to endure 
poverty; we shall have many blessings if we fear God, and 
depart from all sin, and do that which is good. "? Most true 
indeed it is, that man shall have many blessings when he shall 
have departed from all sin. Then no evil shall betide him ; 
nor shall he have need of the prayer, “ Deliver us from evil.”* 
Although even now every man who progresses [in spiritual 
life,] advancing ever with an upright purpose, departs from all 
sin, and becomes further removed from it as he approaches 
nearer to the fulness and perfection of the righteous state; 
because even concupiscence itself, which is sin dwelling in 
our flesh, never ceases to diminish in progressing [Christians, | 
although it still remains in their mortal members. It is one 
thing, therefore, to depart from all sin,—a process which is 
even now in operation,—and another thing to have departed 
from all sin, which shall happen in the state of future perfec- 
tion. But still, even he who has departed already from evil, 
and is continuing to do so, must be allowed to be a doer of 
good. How then is it said, in the passage which he has 
quoted and left unsolved, * There is none that doeth good, no, 
not one,” except that the Psalmist there censures some one 
nation, amongst whom there was not a man that did good, 
wishing to remain “children of men,” and not sons of God, by 


1 Ps. xiv. 3. ? Ps. xxxvii. 8. 3 Tobit iv. 21. 4 Matt, vi. 13. 


CHAP. XIV.] GOD’S GOODNESS UNIQUE. 941 





whose grace man becomes good, in order todo good? For we 
must suppose the Psalmist here to mean that “good” which he 
describes in the context, saying, “ God looked down from heaven 
upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did 
understand, and seek God.” Such good then as this, seeking 
after God, there was not a man found who pursued it, no, not 
one; but this was in that class of men which is predestinated 
to destruction? It was upon such that God looked down in 
His foreknowledge and passed sentence. 


CHAP. XIv.—(32.) The fourth passage. In what sense God only is good. With 
God to be good and to be Himself are the same thing. 


“ They likewise,” says he, “quote what the Saviour says: 
‘Why callest thou me good ?. There is none good save one, 
‘that is, God?'"? This quotation, however, he makes no attempt 
whatever to explain; all he does is to oppose to it sundry 
other passages which seem to contradict it. These he ad- 
duces to show that man is good. Here are his remarks: “ We 
must answer this text with another, in which the same Lord 
says, ‘A good man out of the good treasure of his heart 
bringeth forth good things'* And again: *He maketh His 
sun to rise on the good and on the evil'^ Then in another 
passage it is written, ‘For the good things are created from 
the beginning; and yet again, ‘They that are good shall 
dwell in the land? "^ Now to all this we must say in answer, 
that the passage in question must be understood in the same 
sense as the former one, * There is none that doeth good, no, 
not one," either because all created things, although God made 
them very good, are yet, when compared with their Creator, 


— 


b Psxiv. 2. 

? On this passage Fulgentius remarks (Ad Monimum, i. 5): **In no other 
sense do I suppose that passage of St. Augustine should be taken, in which he 
affirms that there are certain persons predestinated to destruction, than in regard 
to their punishment, not their sin. [That is to say, their predestination is] not 
to the evil which they unrighteously commit, but to the punishment which they 
shall righteously suffer ; not to the sin on account of which they either do not 
receive, or else lose, the benefit of the first resurrection, but to the retribution 
which their own personal iniquity evilly incurs, and the divine justice right- 
eously inflicts.” 

3 Luke xviii. 19. 4 Matt. xii. 35. 5 Matt. v. 45. 

6 Ecclus, xxxix. 25, 7 Prov. ii. 21. 


342 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. XIV. 





not good, being in fact incapable of any comparison with Him. 
For in a transcendent, and yet very proper sense, He said of 
Himself, “I AM THAT I Am.”* The statement therefore before 
us, “None is good save one, that is, God," is used in some 
such way as that which is said of John, * He was not that 
light;"* although the Lord calls him “a light,"? [or * lamp,"*] 
just as he He says to His disciples: * Ye are the light of the 
word e cs neither do men light a candle and put it under 
a bushel"? Still, in comparison with that light which is 
“the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into 
the world," he was not light. Or else, because the very 
sons of God even, when compared with themselves as they 
shall hereafter become in their eternal perfection, [have only a 
qualified goodness,] are good in such a way as still to remain 
evil, Although I should not have dared to say this of them 
(for who would be so bold as to call them evil who have God 
fortheir Father?) unless the Lord had Himself said: *If ye 
then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, 
how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give 
good things to them that ask Him ?"' Of course, by applying 
to them Ie words, “your Father,” He proved that they were 
already sons of God; and yet at the same time He did not 
hesitate to say that dy were “evil.” Your author, however, 
does not explain to us how they [whose eulogies he quotes] 
are good, whilst yet * there is none good save one, that is, God.” 
IOS NSE the man who asked [the Lord] “what good thing 
he was to do,"? was admonished to seek Him? by whose 
grace he might become good; to whom also £o be good is 
nothing else than to be Himself, because He is unchangeably 
good, and cannot be evil at all. 
(83.) Lhe fifth passage. 10 

“This,” says he, “is another text of theirs: ‘Who will 
boast that he has a pure heart ?'"! And then he produced 
his answer thereto out of several passages, wishing to show 
that there may be in man a pure heart. But lio omits to 


UEX HL 14. ^ ?Johni. 8. 3 John v. 35. 
* [The word is Azo, not Qus. ] 5 Matt. v. 14, 15. 6 John i. 9. 
7 Matt. vii. 11. 8 Matt. xix. 16. 9 Luke x; 27, 29. 


20 See also his work Contra Julianum, ii. 8. U Prov. xx. 9. 


CHAP. Xv.] CONFIDENCE TOWARDS GOD. 343 





inform us how the passage which he paraded as quoted against 
himself must be taken, so as to prevent Holy Scripture seem- 
ing to be opposed to itself in this text, and in the passages 
which comprise his answer. We for our part indeed tell him, 
in answer to all his allegation, that the clause, “ Who will 
boast that he has a pure heart?" is a suitable sequel to the. 
preceding. sentence, * whenever a righteous king sits upon 
the throne"! For how great soever a man’s righteousness 
may be, he ought to reflect and think, lest. there should be 
found something blameworthy, which has escaped indeed his 
own notice, when that righteous King shall sit upon His 
throne, whose cognizance no sins can possibly escape, not 
even those of which it is said, * Who understandeth his trans- 
gressions ?"? “ When, therefore, the righteous King shall sit 
upon His throne, . . . . who will boast that he has a pure 
heart ? or who will boldly say that he is pure from sin?"? 
Not one, except perhaps those who wish to boast of their 
own righteousness, and not glory in the compassions of the 
Judge Himself. 
CHAP. xv.—(84.) 

And yet the passages are true which he goes on'to adduce 
by way of answer. This is what he says: * The Saviour in 
the gospel declares, ‘ Blessed are the pure in heart; for they 
shall see God.’* David also says, ‘Who shall ascend into the 
hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place? He 
that is innocent in his hands, and pure in his heart?’ and 
again in another passage, ‘ Do good, O Lord, unto those that 
be good and upright in heart. So also in Solomon [it is 
written,] ‘Riches are good unto him that hath no sin [on his 
conscience]; ^ and again in the same book, ‘ Leave off from 
sin, and order thine hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from 
wickedness'* So in the Epistle of John, ‘If our heart con- 
demn us not, then have we confidence toward God ; and what- 
soever we ask, we shall receive of Him"? For all this is 
accomplished in us when we have the will, by the exercise of 
faith, hope, and charity ; by keeping under the body ; by doing 


1 Prov. xx. 8. 3 of xix. 12. 3 Prov. xx. 8, 9. 
* Matt. v. 8. SPs, xxiv. 9; 4. 6 Ps. exxv. 4. 
7 Ecclus. xiii. 24. $ Ecclus. xxxviii. 10. 91 John iii. 21, 22. 


344 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. xv. 





alms; by forgiving injuries; by earnest prayer; by suppli- 
cating for strength to advance in our course; by sincerely 
saying, “ Forgive us, as we also forgive others," and * Lead us 
not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"! By this pro- 
cess, [I say,] it is certainly brought about that our heart is 
cleansed, and all our sin taken away ; and what the righteous 
King, when sitting on His throne, shall find concealed in 
the heart and uncleansed as yet, shall be remitted by His 
mercy, so that the whole shall be rendered sound and cleansed 
for seeing God. For “he shall have judgment without mercy, 
that hath showed no mercy: yet mercy triumpheth against 
judgment"? If it were not so, what hope could any of us 
have? “When, indeed, the righteous King shall sit upon His 
throne, who shall boast that he hath a pure heart, or who shall 
boldly say that he is pure from sin?” Then, however, through 
His mercy shall the righteous, being by that time fully and 
perfectly cleansed, shine forth like the glorious sun in the 
kingdom of their Father.’ 


(35.) The Church will be without spot and wrinkle after the resurrection. 


Then shall the Church realize, in a full and perfect degree, 
the condition of “not having spot, or any such thing,"* be- 
cause then also will it in a real sense be glorious. For inas- 
much as he added the epithet “ glorious, when he said, 
"That He might present the Church to Himself, not having 
spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing," [it follows that it shall] 
then be spotless when it shall be glorious. Because it is not 
so much when the Church is involved in so many evils [as 
now befall it,] or amidst such offences, and in so great a mix- 
ture of evil of very evil men, and amidst the heavy reproaches 
of the ungodly, that we ought to say that it is glorious, from 
the fact that kings serve it—a fact which only produces a 
more perilous and a sorer temptation,—but that its glory shall 
rather then arise, when that event shall come to pass of which 
the apostle also speaks in the words, * When Christ, who is 
your life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in 
glory."^ For since the Lord Himself, in that form of a ser- 


! Matt. vi. 12, 13. *da5. 11.18. 3 Matt. xiii. 43. 
* Eph. v. 27. TOCOL | Bae 


CHAP. XV.] | GRACE HERE, PERFECTION HEREAFTER. 345 





vant by means of which He united Himself as Mediator to 
the Church, was not glorified without the glory of His resur- 
rection (whence the statement, * The Spirit was not yet given, 
because Christ was not yet glorified”*), how shall His Church be 
described as glorious, previous to its resurrection? He cleanses 
it, therefore, now “by the laver of the water in the word,” ? 
washing away its past sins, and driving off from it the dominion 
of wicked angels; but then by bringing all its healthy powers 
to perfection, He makes it meet for that glorious state, where 
it shall shine without a spot or wrinkle. For “whom He did 
predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them 
He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glori- 
fied"? It was under this mystery, as I suppose, that that 
[remarkable word of His] was spoken, “ Behold, I cast out 
devils, and I do cures to-day and to-morrow, and the third 
day I shall be consummated or perfected.”* For He said this 
in the person of His body, which is His Church, putting days 
for distinct and appointed periods, whilst He also signified 
on “the third day” [the perfection which should accrue to 
Him] in His resurrection. 


(36.) T'he difference between the upright in heart and the clean in heart. 

I suppose, too, that there is a difference between one who 
is upright in heart and one who is clean in heart. A man is 
upright in heart when he “reaches forward to those things 
which are before, forgetting those things which are behind,”® 
so as to arrive in*a right course, that is, with right faith 
and purpose, at the perfection where he may dwell clean and 
pure in heart. Thus, in the psalm, the conditions ought to 
be severally bestowed on each separate character, where it is 
said, “ Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who 
shall stand in His holy place? He that is innocent in his 
hands, and pure [or clean] in his heart" He shall ascend, 
innocent in his hands, and stand, clean in his heart,—the one 
state in present operation, the other in its consummation. And 
of them should rather be understood that which is written: 


1 John vii. 39. 
? Eph. v. 26. [The phrase is lavacro aque — «a arourpp rod Idares. | 
3 Rom. viii. 30. * Luke xiii. 32. 7 PL SL. IS. 6 Ps. xxiv. 8, 4. 


946 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. XVI. 





* Riches are good unto him that hath no sin [on his con- 
science.”*] Then indeed shall accrue the good, or true riches, 
when all poverty shall have passed away; in other words, 
when all infirmity shall have been removed. A man may 
now indeed *leave off from sin," when in his onward course 
he departs from it, and is renewed day by day; and he may 
“order his hands," and direct them to works of mercy, and 
* cleanse his heart from all wickedness,"? [and] be so merciful 
that what remains may be forgiven him by free pardon. This 
indeed is the sound and suitable meaning, without any vain 
and empty boasting, of that which St. John said: *If our 
heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God. 
And whatsoever we ask, we shall receive of Him."? The 
warning which he clearly has addressed to us in this passage, 
is to beware lest our heart should reproach us in our very 
prayers and petitions; that is to say, lest, when we happen to 
resort to this prayer, and say, “Forgive us, even as we our- 
selves forgive," we should have to feel compunction for not 
doing what we say, or should even lose boldness to utter what 
we fail to do, and thereby forfeit the confidence of faithful 
and earnest prayer. 
. Cnr. xvr.—(37.) The sixth passage. 

He has also adduced this passage of Scripture, which is 
| very commonly quoted against his party: “For there is not a 
just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not"* And 
he makes a pretence of answering it by other passages,—how, 
[for instance,] the Lord says concerning holy Job, * Hast thou 
considered my servant Job? For there is none like him 
upon earth, a man who is blameless, true, a worshipper of 
God, and abstaining from every evil thing." On this pas- 
sage we have already made some remarks? But even he has 
not attempted to show us how, on the one hand, Job was 
absolutely sinless upon earth,—if the words are to bear such a 
sense; and, on the other hand, how that can be true which he 
has admitted to be in the Scripture, “There is not a just 
man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not."? 


1 Ecclus. xiii. 24 ? Ecclus. xxxviii. 10. *gohn HL 9L. 99 
* Eccles. vii. 20. 5 Job i. 8 (Sept.). 9 See above, ch. xii. (29.) 
7 Eccles. vii. 20, 








CHAP. XVII] BLAMELESS MEN. 347 





CHap. xvir.—(38.) The seventh passage. Who may be called immaculate. 
How it is that in God's sight no man is justified. 


“They also,” says he, “quote the text: ‘For in thy sight 
shall no man living be justified’”* And his affected answer 
to this passage amounts to nothing else than the showing 
how texts of Holy Scripture seem to clash with one another, 
whereas it is our duty rather to demonstrate their agreement. 
These are his words: “We must confront them with this 
answer, from the testimony of the evangelist concerning holy 
Zacharias and Elisabeth, when he says, ‘ And they were both 
righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and 
ordinances of the Lord blameless.’ Now both these righteous 
persons had, of course, read amongst these very command- 
ments the prescribed method of cleansing their own sins, 
For, according to what is said in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
of ‘every high priest taken from among men,” Zacharias used 
no doubt to offer sacrifices even for his own sins" The 
meaning, however, of the phrase “ blameless,’ which is applied 
to him, we have already, as I suppose, sufficiently explained.* 
* And,” he adds, “the blessed apostle says, ‘That we should 
be holy, and without blame before Him.'"? This, according to 
. him, means that we should be so, if those persons are to be 
understood by “blameless” who are altogether without sin. 
If, however, they are “blameless” who are without blame or 
censure, then it is impossible for us to deny that there have 
been, and still are, such persons even in this present life; for. 
it does not follow that a man is without sin because he has 
not a blot of censure. Accordingly the apostle, when select- 
ing ministers for ordination, does not say, “If any be sinless,” 
for he would be unable to find any such; but he says, “ If any 
be blameless,’ ® for such, of course, he would be able to find. 
But our opponent does not tell us how, in accordance with his 
views, we ought to understand the scripture, “For in Thy 
sight shall no man living be justified."" The meaning of these 
words is plain enough, receiving as it does additional light 
from the preceding clause: “Enter not,” says the Psalmist, 
“into judgment with Thy servant, [O Lord,] for in Thy sight 


+P a; exit, 9. ? Luke i. 6. 3 Heb. v. 1. — *Gee above, ch. xi. (23). 
5 Eph. i. 4. 6 Tit. i. 6. * Ps. cxliii. 2. 


348 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. XVIII. 





shall no man living be justified." It is judgment which he 
fears, therefore he desires that mercy which triumphs over 
judgment! For the meaning of the prayer, * Enter not into 
judgment with Thy servant," isthis: Judge me not according 
to Thine own attribute, who art without sin; *forin Thy sight 
shall no man living be justified.” This without doubt is 
understood as spoken of the present life, whilst the predicate 
“shall not be justified” has reference to that perfect state of 
righteousness which belongs not to this life. 


CHAP. xvill.—(89.) The eighth passage. In what sense he is said not to sin who 
is born of God. In what way he who sins shall not see nor know God. 


“They also quote,” says he, “this passage, ‘If we say that 
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in 
us'"^ And this very clear testimony he has endeavoured to 
meet with apparently contradictory texts, saying thus: “The 
same St. John in this very epistle says, * This, however, brethren, 
I enjoin on you, that ye sin not. Whosoever is born of God 
doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he 
cannot sin? Also elsewhere: ‘Whosoever is born of God 
sinneth not; because his being born of God preserveth him, 
and the evil one toucheth him not'* And again in another 
passage, when speaking of the Saviour, he says: ‘Since He 
was manifested to take away sins, whosoever abideth in Him 
sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither 
known Him.’ And yet again: * Beloved, now are we the sons 
of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but 
we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; 
for we shall see Him as He is And every man that hath 
this hope towards Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure. "* 
And yet, notwithstanding the truth of all these passages, that 
also is true which he has adduced, without, however, offering 
any explanation of it: “If we say that we have no sin, we 
deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"" Now it follows 
from the whole of this, that in so far as we are born of God 
we abide in Him who appeared to take away sins, that is, in 
Christ, and therefore sin not, which implies that “the inward 
man is renewed day by day;"? but in so far as we are born 


1 Jas. ii. 12. ? 1 John i. 8. 3 1 John iii. 9. 4 1 John v. 18. 
51Johniii 5,6. 6 1 Johniii. 2,3. 71 John i. 8. 8 2 Cor. iv. 16. 








CHAP. XVIIL] | THE REGENERATE, HOW SINLESS. 349 





of that man *through whom sin entered into the world, and 
death by sin, whereby death passed upon all men,"! we are 
not without sin, because we are not as yet freed from his 
infirmity, [nor indeed shall be,] until by that renewal which 
takes place from day to day (for it is in accordance with this 
very [renovation] that we were born of God), that infirmity 
shall be wholly repaired, wherein we were born after the first 
man, and in which we are not without sin. Now, while the 
remains of this infirmity abide in our inward man (for they 
still continue in us, however much they may be daily lessened 
in those who are advancing [in the Christian course], * we 
deceive ourselves, and have not the truth in us, if we say that 
we have no sin.” Now, however true it is that “ whosoever 
sinneth hath not seen Him, nor known Him”? (for in respect 
of the vision and knowledge, which shall be realized in actual 
sight by and by, no one can in this life see and know Him), 
yet in respect of the vision and knowledge which come of 
faith, there may be many who commit sin,—actual apostates, 
at any rate,—who still have believed in Him some time or 
other; so that of none of these could it be said, according to 
the vision and knowledge which still come of faith, that he 
has neither seen Him nor known Him. But I suppose it 
ought to be understood that it is the renewal which awaits 
perfection that sees and knows Him; whereas the infirmity 
which is destined to waste and ruin neither sees nor knows 
Him. And it is owing to the remains of this infirmity, of 
whatever amount, which remain firm in our inward man, that 
* we-deceive ourselves, and have not the truth in us, when we 
say that we have no sin.” Although, then, by the grace of 
renovation “we are the sons of God,” yet by reason of the 
remains of infirmity within us “it doth not appear what we 
shall be; only we know that, when He shall appear, we shall 
be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is" Then there 
shall be no more sin, because no infirmity shall any longer 
remain within us or without us. “And every man that hath 
this hope towards Him purifieth himself, even as He is pure,” 
—purifieth himself, not indeed by himself simply, but by 
believing in Him, and calling on Him who sanctifieth His 


1 Rom. v. 12. 2 ] John iii. 6. 


950 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. XIX. 





saints; which sanctification, when perfected at last (for it is 

at present only advancing and growing day by day), shall take 

away from us for ever all the remains of our infirm condition. 
Cuap. XIX.—(40.) The ninth passage. 

“This passage, too," says he, “is quoted by them: ‘It is 
not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God 
that showeth mercy.””* And he observes that the answer to 
be given to them is derived from the same apostle's words in 
another passage: “ Let him do what he will"? And he adds 
another passage from the Epistle to Philemon, where, speaking 
of Onesimus, [St. Paul says]: * Whom I would have retained 
with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me 
in the bonds of the gospel. But without thy mind would I do 
nothing ; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, 
but willinely.”* “Likewise,” [continues he, we read] “in 
Deuteronomy: ‘ Life and death hath He set before thee, and 
good and evil: . . choose thou life, that thou mayest live. * 
So in the book of Solomon: ‘God from the beginning made 
man, and left him in the hand of His counsel; and He added 
for him commandments and precepts: the precepts, if thou 
wilt, shall save thee, and [make thee] perform acceptable faith- 
fulness for the time to come. He hath set fire and water 
before thee: stretch forth thine hand unto whether thou wilt. 
Before man are good and evil, and life and death; poverty and 
honour are from the Lord Gcd/ ? So again in Isaiah we read: 
‘If ye be willing, and hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good 
of the land; but if ye be not willing, and hearken not to me, 
the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken this.” ° Now with all their efforts of disguise they 
here betray their purpose; for they plainly attempt to con- 
trovert the grace and mercy of God, which we desire to obtain 
whenever we offer the prayer, * Thy will be done in earth as 
it is in heaven;"" or again this, “Lead us not into tempta- 
tion, but deliver us from evil"? For indeed why do we pre- 
sent such petitions in earnest supplication, if the result is of 
him that willeth, and him that runneth, but not of God that 
showeth mercy ? Not that the result is quite independent of 


1 Rom. ix. 16. 3] Cor. vii. 86. 5 Philem. 13,14. * Deut. xxx. 15, 19. 
$ Ecclus. xv. 14-17. 6Isa,i.19, 20. 7 Matt. vi. 10. 8 Matt. vi. 13. 


CHAP. XIX.] GRACE FINDS WORK FOR THE WILL. 351 





our will, but that our will does not accomplish its aims in 
action, unless it receive the divine assistance. Now the 


“wholesome effect of faith is this, that it makes us “ seek, that 


we may find; ask, that we may receive; and knock, that it 
may be opened to us"! Whereas the man who gainsays it, 
does really shut the door of God’s mercy against himself. I 
am unwilling to say more touching so important a matter, 
because I do better in committing it to the deep sighing of the 
faithful, than in enlarging on it in words of my own. 

(41.) But I beg of you to see, what after all is the small 
amount of his objection, that to him who “willeth and 
runneth” there is no necessity for God’s mercy, which 
actually prevents him, in order that he may run,—because, 
forsooth, the apostle says concerning a certain person, “ Let 
him do what he will"? in the matter, I suppose, which ‘he 
goes on to treat, when he says, “He sinneth not, let him 
marry ;"? as if indeed it should be regarded as a great matter 
to be willing to marry, when the subject is a laboured discus- 
sion concerning the assistance of God’s grace. Well, then, 
[I suppose] even in this case to have a will is of considerable 
advantage, even if God's providence, which governs all things, 
does not join together the man and the woman! So again, 
[I suppose it is] in the case of the apostle’s writing to 
Philemon, that “his kindness should not be as it were of 
necessity, but voluntary,’—as if any good act could indeed be 
voluntary otherwise than by God's “working in us both to 
will and to do of His own good pleasure" * So again, when 
the Scripture says in Deuteronomy, * Life and death hath He 
set before man, and good and evil" and admonishes him *to 
choose life ; " as if, forsooth, this very admonition did not come 
from God's mercy, or as if there were any advantage in 
choosing life, unless God inspired love to make such a choice, 
and it were better to have it as the object of our choice. On 


. this point it is said: “For anger is in His indignation, and in 


His pleasure is life.” ° 


Or again, because it is said, “The commandments, if thou 
wilt, shall save thee," °—as if a man ought not to thank God, 


1 Duke xi. 9. 21 Cor. vii. 36. 3 1 Cor. vii. 36. 
* Phil. ii. 13. 5 Ps, xxx. 5. 6 Ecclus. xv. 15. 


352 ON MAN’S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. XIX. 





because he has a will to keep the commandments, since, if 
he wholly lacked the light of truth, it would not be possible 
for him to possess such a will “Fire and water being set 
before him, a man stretches forth his hand towards which he 
pleases;"! and yet higher is He who calls man to his higher 
vocation than any thought on man's own part, inasmuch as 
the beginning of correction of the heart lies in faith, even 
as it is written, “Thou shalt, come, and pass on from the 
beginning of faith."? Every one makes his choice of good, 
* according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of 
faith;"? and as the Prince of faith says, * No man can 
come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw 
him"* And that He spake this in reference to the faith which 
believes in Him, He subsequently explains with sufficient clear- 
ness, when He says: “The words that I speak unto you, they 
are spirit, and they are life; yet there are some of you that 
believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they 
were that believed not, and who should betray Him. And 
He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come 
unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father.” ? 

(12.) God's promises conditional. Saints of the Old Testament were saved by the 

grace of Christ. 

He, however, thought he had discovered a great support for 
his cause in the prophet Isaiah; because by him God said: 
“Tf ye be willing, and hearken unto me, ye shall eat the good 
of the land ; but if ye be not willing, and hearken not to me, 
the sword shall devour you: for the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken this" As if the entire law were not full of con- 
ditions of this sort; or as if its commandments had been 
given to proud men for any other reason than that *the law 
was added because of transgression, until the seed should 
come to whom the promise was made." * “It entered, there- 
fore, that the offence might abound; but where sin abounded, 
grace did much more abound." ? In other words, That man 
might receive commandments, trusting as he did in his own 
resources, and that, failing in these and becoming a trans- 
gressor, he might ask for a deliverer and a saviour ; and that 


1 Eecclus. xv. 16. ? Cant. iv. 8 (Sept.). $ Rom. xii. 3. * John vi. 44. 
5 John vi. 62-65. 6 Isa. 1. 19, 20. 7 Gal. iii. 19. 8 Rom. v. 20. 


CHAP. XX.] GOD AND MAN IN CO-OPERATION. 353 





the law by its fear might humble him, and bring him, as 
a schoolmaster, to faith and grace. Thus “ their weaknesses 
being multiplied, they hastened” [after the Saviour]; and 
in order to heal them, Christ in due season came. In His 
grace even righteous men of old believed, and by the same 
grace were they holpen; so that with joy did they receive a 
foreknowledge of Him, and some of them even foretold His 
coming,—whether they were found among the people of Israel 
themselves, as Moses, and Joshua the son of Nun, and Samuel, 
and David, and such-like worthies; or outside that people, as 
Job; or previous to their formation, as Abraham, and Noah, 
and all others either mentioned in Holy Scripture or tacitly 
assumed therein. “For there is but one God, and one only 
Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus,"? 
without whose grace nobody is delivered from condemnation, 
whether he has derived that condemnation from him in whom 
all men sinned, or has afterwards aggravated it by his own 
iniquities. 
Cuap. xx.—(43.) No man is assisted unless he does himself also work. Our 
course is a constant progress. 

But what is the import of the last statement which he has 
made: “If any one say, ‘It may possibly be that a man sin 
not even in word, then the answer,” says he, * which must be 
given is, * Quite possible, if God so will; and God does so will, 
therefore it is possible.” See how unwilling he was to say, 
“Tf God give His help, then it would be possible;" and yet 
the Psalmist thus addresses God: “Be Thou my helper, for- 
sake me not;"? where of course help is not sought for pro- 
curing bodily advantages and avoiding bodily evils, but for 
practising and fulfilling righteousness. Hence it is that we 
say: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”* 
Now no man is assisted [by God,] unless he also himself does 
something ; assisted, however, he is, if he prays, if he believes, 
if he is “called according to God's purpose ;’ for “whom He 
did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the 
image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among 
many brethren, Moreover, whom He did predestinate, them 

1 Ps, xvi. 4 (Sept.). 3 1 Tim, ii. 5. 9 ps xxvib (5 
4 Matt. vi. 13. 5 Rom. viii. 28. 
4 Z 


354 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS. [CHAP. XXI. 





He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified ; 
and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” We run, 
therefore, whenever we make advance; and our healthy con- 
dition keeps pace with us in this onward course (just as a 
sore is said to run” when the wound is in process of a sound 
and careful treatment), in order that we may be in every 
respect perfect, without any infirmity of Sin whatever,—a 
result which God not only wishes, but even causes and helps 
us to accomplish. And this God's grace does, in co-operation 
with ourselves, through Jesus Christ our Lord, as well by 
commandments, sacraments, and examples, as by His Holy 
Spirit also; through whom there is latently shed abroad in : 
our hearts? that love, * which maketh intercession for us with 
groanings which cannot be uttered,"* until health and salva- 
tion be perfected in us, and God be manifested to us as He 
will be seen in His eternal truth. 

Cuap. xx1.—(44.) Conclusion of the work. In the regenerate it is not con- 

cupiscence, but consent, which is sin. 

Whosoever, then, supposes that any man or any men 
(except the one Mediator between God and man?) have ever 
lived, or are yet living in this present state, who have not 
wanted, and do not want, forgiveness of sins, he opposes 
Holy Scripture, wherein it is said by the apostle: “By one 
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so 
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned"* And 
he must needs go on to assert, with an impious contention, 
that there may possibly be men who are freed and saved from 
sin without the liberation and salvation of the one Mediator 
Christ. Whereas He it is who has said: “They that be 
whole need not a physician, but they that are sick ;”7 “I am 
not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” ? 
He, moreover, who says that any man, after he has received 
remission of sins, has ever lived in this body, or still is living, 
so righteously as to have no sin at all, he contradicts the 
Apostle John, who declares that * If we say we have no sin, 
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"? Observe, 


! Rom. viii. 29, 30. SP ddxxvin2 3 Rom. v. 5. 
. * Rom. viii. 26. 51 Tim. ii. 5. 6 Rom. v. 12. 
7 Matt. ix. 12. 8 Matt. ix. 13. 91 John i. 8. 


CHAP. XXL] CONSENT, NOT CONCUPISCENCE, IS SIN. 855 





the expression is not we had, but “we have.” If, however, 
anybody contend that the apostle’s statement concerns the sin 
which dwells in our mortal flesh after the original flaw of our 
nature, which was caused by the wilfulness of the first man 
when he sinned, then the Apostle Paul enjoins us “ not” to 
“obey it in the lusts thereof,” * [implying] that he does not sin 
who altogether withholds his consent from this same indwell- 
ing sin, and so brings it to no evil work,—either in deed, or 
word, or thought,—although the lusting after it may be ex- 
cited (which in another sense has received the name of sin, 
inasmuch as consenting to it would amount to sinning), but 
excited against our will) This, no doubt, is drawing subtle 
distinctions; but the man who indulges in them should 
consider what relation all this bears to the Lord’s Prayer, 
wherein we say, “ Forgive us our debts"? Now, if I judge 
aright, it would be unnecessary to put up such a prayer as 
this, if we never in the least degree consented to the lusts of 
the before-mentioned sin, either in a slip of the tongue, or in 
a wanton thought ; all that it would be needful to say would 
be, * Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil"? 
Nor could the Apostle James say: “In many things we all 
offend.”* For in truth only that man offends whom an evil 
concupiscence persuades, either by deception or by force, to do 
or say or think something which he ought to avoid, by direct- 
ing his appetites or his aversions contrary to the rule of 
righteousness. Finally, if it be asserted that there either have 
been, or are in this present life, any persons, with the sole 
exception of our Great Head, “the Saviour of His body [the 
Church,|”° who are righteous, without any sin,—and this, 
either by not consenting to the lusts thereof, or because that 
must not be accounted as any sin, which is such that God 
does not impute it to them by reason of their godly lives 
(although the blessedness of being without sin is a different 
thing from the blessedness of not having one’s sin imputed to 
him),°—I do not deem it necessary to contest the point over 
much. I am quite aware that some hold this opinion, whose 


! Rom. vi. 12. ? Matt, vi, 12. —  ? Matt. vi. 13. 
* Jas. iii. 2. © Eph, 3. 22, 98, and-y..289;.— * Di xtxin 2. 
7 See Augustine’s treatise, De Natura et Gratia, 74, 75. 


956 ON MAN'S PERFECTION IN RIGHTEOUSNESS.  [CHAP. XXI. 





views on the subject I have not the courage to censure, 
although, at the same time, I cannot defend them. But if 
any man says that we ought not to use the prayer, * Lead 
us not into temptation” (and he says as much who maintains 
that God’s help is unnecessary to a person for the avoidance 
of sin, and that his own will, after accepting only the law, is 
sufficient for the purpose), then I do not hesitate at once to 
affirm that such a man ought to be removed from the public 
ear, and to have his anathema pronounced by every mouth. 


PREFACE 


TO THE BOOK 


ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. 


n 


p the year of Christ 415, Pelagius was accused of heresy 

in Palestine, and brought to trial on one or two occasions. 
At the first trial, which was held on or about the 30th of 
July, at a congress of his presbyters, by John, bishop of Jeru- 
salem, no regular account was kept of the proceedings, as we are 
informed by Augustine in the following work (sec. 39 and 55). 
The hour and the day of this assembly we may learn from 
Orosius, a presbyter of Spain, who was present at the congress, 
and has in his Apology committed to writing some of its most 
memorable acts. We are informed by him that “ after a great 
deal of earnest proceeding on both sides, the bishop John pro- 
posed the last resolution, that certain brethren should be sent 
with a letter to the blessed Innocent, Pope of Rome, to the 
intent that he might decide on all the points which were to 
follow." 

The second trial took place afterwards at a city in Palestine 
called Diospolis [Lydda], before fourteen bishops, at which was 
kept an accurate report of the proceedings. The bishops are 
severally mentioned by Augustine in his work against Julianus, 
chs. v. and vii, in the following order: * Eulogius, John, 
Ammonianus, Porphyry, Eutonius, another Porphyry, Fidus, 
Zoninus, Zoboennus, Nymphidius, Chromatíus, Jovinus, Eleu- 
therius, and Clematius. There can be no doubt that Eulogius, 
bishop of Czesarea, was also primate of the province of Pales-' 
tine, because he is constantly mentioned by Augustine as 

357 


358 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. 





occupying the first place before the other thirteen bishops, 
and even before John himself, bishop of Jerusalem. 

We find from the epistle of Lucian, De revelatione corporis 
Stephani martyris, that this synod was held at the approach 
of Christmas. In this epistle he tells us of three visions 
which God had shown him in the year 415,— the first on 
December 3d, and the other two on the 10th and 17th of the 
same month; that he then reported the matter to John, bishop 
of Jerusalem, who sent him in quest of the martyr's sepulchre. 
He further informs us that he discovered the sepulchre, and. 
at once returned to John, * who (says he) was attending a 
synod at Lydda, which is Diospolis.” This must have hap- 
pened about the 21st of the month, since Lucian goes on to 
say that John came, in the company of two more bishops, 
Eutonius of Sebaste and Eleutherius of Jericho, and that in 
their presence the relies of the martyr were removed on the 
26th day of the same month of December. 

A certain deacon, called Annianus, is supposed to have 
pleaded the cause of Pelagius at the synod; some learned 
men finding it easier to interpret of this deacon than of 
Pelagius what Jerome writes in a letter addressed to Alypius 
and Augustine (Lpist. Augustinian. 202, 2): * For every- 
thing which he denies having ever uttered in that miserable 
synod of Diospolis he professes to hold in this work.” Jerome 
bestowed the epithet of “miserable” on this synod of Dios- 
polis, for no other reason (as we suppose) than because he dis- 
covered from the Acts [or register of the proceedings] how 
miserably the synod had been duped by Pelagius. Pope 
Innocent, after a sight of these Acts, expressly owned (see 
Hpist. Augustinian. 184, 4) that * he could not bring himself 
to refuse either blame or praise of those men” [meaning the 
bishops of the synod]. Augustine, however, in the following 
treatise (see chs. iv. and viii.), does not hesitate to call them 
" pious judges,” and (in his first book against Julianus, ch. v.) 
“catholic judges," who, when Pelagius abjured the errors attri- 
buted to him, pronounced him a Catholic, and acquitted him ; 
indeed, he frequently cites these fourteen bishops as witnesses 
of the Catholie faith in opposition to Julianus. 

In his letters addressed to Pope Innocent in the year 416 


PREFACE. | 359 - 





(see Epist. Augustinian. 175, 4, and 177, 2), Augustine inti- 
mated that he knew nothing of the Acts of the synod except 
. from hearsay ; and in a letter to John, bishop of Jerusalem 
(Epist. 179, 4), he earnestly requested him to forward them 
^ tohim. But the report was in his hands about midsummer in 
417, when he wrote his Epistle to Paulinus (Zpist. 186, 31); 
so that the date of the following treatise is thus traced to the 
commencement of the year 417, supposing it to have been 
published immediately after he had received the Acts. 

The title given to this work by Augustine, in his book On 
Original Sin (14), stands De Gestis Palestinis [On the Proceed- 
ings which took place in Palestine]; by this title Prosper 
likewise refers to the work (in his book [so-called] Adv. Col- 
latorem, 47); but yet we ought to retain the inscription De 
Gestis Pelagii, which is prefixed both to the ancient editions and 
to the particular Retractation in which Augustine reviewed this 
work. The treatise had this title given to it, no doubt, either 
because it had. been already commonly accepted as a descrip- 
tion of these proceedings of Pelagius and his vindication, which 
led to his boast that he had been acquitted; or else from the 
fact that an examination had become necessary of those pro- 
ceedings, which the accused party had himself published in an 
abridged and garbled form. Hence Possidonius named the 
treatise by the title, Contra Gesta Pelagw [A Protest, or Vin- 
dication, against the Proceedings of Pelagius]. 

Out of this book Photius copied a very accurate account of 
the Synod of Diospolis and inserted it in his Bzbliotheca (cod. 
54). One may therefore conclude that this work of Augus- 
tine’s is one of those which Possidonius, in his life [of the 
saint], ch. xi, mentions as having been “translated into the 
Greek tongue.” The Aurelius to whom the work is dedi- 
cated is mentioned by Photius in the cited passage, and by 
Prosper before him (in the 43d chapter of the above-quoted 
Adversus Collatorem), as “the bishop of Carthage.” Now, 
although the title-page of old did not give them this informa- 
tion, they could both of them discover this fact about Aurelius 
from reading this book, especially ch. 23 [x1]. 


EXTRACT FROM THE SECOND BOOK, 
CHAPTER XLVII, 


OF 


THE RETRACTATIONS. 


ae 


i Cy? happened] about this time, in the East (that is to say, 

in Syrian Palestine), that Pelagius was summoned by 
certain Catholic brethren! before a tribunal of bishops, and 
was heard on his trial by fourteen prelates, in the absence of 
his accusers, who were unable to be present on the day ap- 
pointed for the synod. On his condemning the very dogmas 
which were read from the indictment against him, and which 
assailed the grace of Christ, they pronounced him to be a 
Catholic. But when the Acts of this synod found their way 
into our hands, I wrote a treatise on them, to prevent the 
idea gaining ground that, because he had been in a manner 
acquitted, his opinions also were approved by the bishops ; 
or that the accused could by any chance have escaped con- 
demnation at their hands, unless he had condemned the 
opinions charged against him. This treatise of mine begins 
with these words: ‘ After there fell into my hands’—‘ Postea 
quam im manus nostras. |” | 


1 (Their names were Heros and Lazarus. | 


860 


A WORK, 


IN ONE BOOK, 


ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS, 


ADDRESSED TO 


BISHOP AURELIUS [or CanrHAGE], 


BY 
AURELIUS AUGUSTINE. 


WRITTEN ABOUT THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE YEAR A.D. 417. 


ae 


THE SEVERAL HEADS OF ERROR WHICH WERE ALLEGED AGAINST PELAGIUS AT 
THE SYNOD IN PALESTINE, WITH HIS ANSWERS TO EACH CHARGE, ARE 
MINUTELY DISCUSSED. AUGUSTINE SHOWS THAT, ALTHOUGH PELAGIUS WAS 
ACQUITTED BY THE SYNOD, THERE STILL CLAVE TO HIM A SUSPICION OF 
HERESY; AND THAT THE ACQUITTAL OF THE ACCUSED BY THE SYNOD WAS 
SO CONTRIVED, THAT THE HERESY ITSELF WITH WHICH HE WAS CHARGED 
WAS UNHESITATINGLY CONDEMNED. 


Cup. 1. INTRODUCTION. 
FTER there fell into my hands, holy father Aurelius, the 
ecclesiastical acts, by which fourteen bishops of the 
province of Palestine pronounced Pelagius a Catholic, that 
hesitation of mine received its limit, which previously ren- 
dered me reluctant to make any lengthy or confident statement 
about his actual defence. This defence, indeed, I had already 
read in a paper, which he himself forwarded to me.  Foras- 
much, however, as I received no letter therewith from him, I 
was afraid that some discrepancy might be detected between 
my own statement of the subject and the record itself of the 
ecclesiastical proceedings; and that, should Pelagius say, as 
was quite possible, that he had not sent me any paper (and it 
would have been difficult for me to prove that he had when 
861 


362 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. II. 





there was only one witness in the case), I should myself rather 
seem guilty in the eyes of all, who would readily credit his 
denial either of a supposed falsification, or else (to say the 
least) of a reckless credulity. Now, however, when I am to 
treat of matters which are shown to have actually transpired, 
and when, as it appears to me, all doubt is removed whether 
he really acted in the way described, your holiness, and every- 
body who reads these pages, will no doubt be able to judge, 
with greater readiness and certainty, both of his defence and 
of this my treatment of it. 
CuA?. 2. [1.] 

First of all, then, I offer to the Lord my God, who is also 
my defence and guide, unspeakable thanks, because I was 
not misled in my views respecting our holy brethren and 
fellow-bishops who sat as judges on that case. His answers, 
indeed, they approved, and not without reason; because they 
had not to consider how he had in his writings stated the 
points which were objected against him, but what he had to 
say about them in his reply at the pending inquiry. A case 
of unsoundness in the faith is one thing, that of incautious 
statement is another thing. Now sundry objections were 
urged against Pelagius out of a certain book, which our holy 
brethren and fellow-bishops in Gaul, Heros and Lazarus, gave 
[to Bishop Eulogius,]' being themselves unable to be present, 
owing (as we afterwards learned from credible information) to 
the severe indisposition of one of them. The first of these 
objectionable opinions, which he inserts in a certain book of 
his, is this: * No man can be without sin unless he has 
acquired a knowledge of the law.” After this had been read 
out, the synod inquired: “Did you, Pelagius, express your- 
self thus?” Then in answer he said: “I certainly used the 
words, but not in the sense in which they understand them. 
I did not say that a man is unable to sin who has acquired a 
knowledge of the law; but that à man is by the knowledge of 
the law assisted towards not sinning, even as it is written, 
‘He hath given them a law for a help'"? Upon hearing 


* [Who presided in this synod during the trial of Pelagius. His name is 
mentioned below, see ch. 3. [ix.] 
? Isa. viii. 20 (Septuagint). 





CHAP. IIL] NO RIGHT LIVING WITHOUT GRACE. 963 





this the synod declared: “The words which have been 
spoken by Pelagius are not alien from the mind of the 
Church." Assuredly they are not alien, as he expressed them 
in his answer; the statement, however, which was produced 
from his book has a different sound. But this the bishops, 
who were Greek-speaking men, and did not catch the words 
through the interpreter, did not care about discussing, All they 
had to consider at the moment was, what the man who was 
under examination said was his meaning,—mnot in what words 
his opinion was alleged to have been expressed in his book. 
CHAP. 3. 

Now to say that a man is by a knowledge of the law 
assisted towards not sinning, is a different assertion from 
saying that a man cannot be without sin unless he has 
acquired a knowledge of the law. We see, for example, that 
corn-floors may be threshed without machines, — however 
much these may assist the operation; and that boys can find 
their way to school without the pedagogue,—however valuable 
for the conduct be the office of pedagogues ; and that many 
persons recover from sickness without physicians,—although 
the doctor’s skill is clearly of greatest use; and that men 
sometimes thrive on other aliments besides bread,—however 
invaluable the use of bread must needs be allowed to be; and 
several other illustrations may occur to the thoughful reader, 
without our prompting. From which instances we are un- 
doubtedly reminded that there are two sorts of aids. Some 
are indispensable, and without their help results could not be 
attained. Without a ship, for instance, no man could take a 
voyage ; no man could speak without a voice ; without legs no 
man could walk; without light nobody could see; and so on 
.in numberless instances. Amongst them this also may be 
reckoned, that without God's grace no man can live rightly. 
Dut then, again, there are other helps, which render us assist- 
ance in such a way that we might effect the object to which 
they are ordinarily auxiliary even in their absence. Such are 
those which I have already mentioned,—the machines for 
threshing corn, the pedagogue for conducting the child, medical 
art applied to the recovery of health, and other like instances. 
We have therefore to inquire to which of these two classes 


364 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. tv. 





belongs the knowledge of the law,—in other words, to consider 
in what way it helps us towards the avoidance of sin. If it 
be in the sense of an indispensable aid, not only was Pelagius 
answer before the judges true, but what he wrote in his book 
was true also. If, however, the help afforded by the knowledge 
of the law be of such a character, that the avoiding of sin can 
only be effected by it when it is present, but even if it be 
absent, then the result is still obtainable by some other means, 
—in this case, indeed, his answer to the judges was still true, 
and not unreasonably did it find favour with the bishops, to 
the effect that “man is assisted in not sinning by a knowledge 
of the law;" but what he wrote in his book is not true, that 
“there is no man without sin except him who has acquired a 
knowledge of the law,’—a statement which the judges left 
[undetermined and even] undiseussed. They were ignorant 
of the Latin language, and were content with the confession 
of the man who was pleading his cause before them; espe- 
cially as no one was present on the other side who could 
oblige the interpreter to expose his meaning by an explanation 
of the words of his book, and to show why it was that the 
brethren were not groundlessly moved [to bring their charges 
against the accused.] For but very few persons are thoroughly 
acquainted with the law. The mass of the members of Christ, 
who are scattered abroad everywhere, being ignorant of the 
very profound and complicated contents of the law, have their 
meritin that piety and unfailing hope in God and sincerity 
of love which spring from their simple faith. Endowed with 
such gifts, they trust that by the grace of God they may be 
purged from their sins through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Cuap. 4. [11.] 

If Pelagius, as he probably might, were to say in reply to 
this, that this very description [of the Christian graces] was 
what he meant by * the knowledge of the law," which is in- 
dispensable for a man's being free from sins, which is also 
communicated by the doctrine of faith to converts and babes 
in Christ, and in which candidates for baptism are catecheti- 
cally instructed with a view to their knowing the creed, [all I 
can say is, that] this is not what is usually meant when any 
one is said to have a knowledge of the law. This phrase is 


CHAP. IV.] ON THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW. 365 





only applied to such persons as are skilled in the law. But if 
he persists in describing the knowledge of the law by the words 
in question, which, however few in number, are massive in 
weight, and used to designate all who are rightly baptized accord- 
ing to the prescribed rule of the Churches; and if he maintains 
that it was of this that he said, “ No one is without sin, but 
the man who has acquired the knowledge of the law,’—a 
knowledge which must needs be conveyed to believers before 
they attain to the actual remission of sins,—even in such case 
there would crowd around him a countless multitude, not 
indeed of angry disputants, but of whining baptized infants, 
who would exclaim,—not, to be sure, in words, but in the very 
truthfulness of innocence,—* What is it, O what is it that 
you have written: ‘He only can be without sin who has 
acquired a knowledge of the law?’ See here are we, a large 
flock of lambs; we are without sin, and yet we have no 
knowledge of the law.” Now surely they with their silent 
tongue would compel him to silence, or, perhaps, even to 
confess that he was corrected of his great perverseness ; or 
else (if you will), that he had already for some time enter- 
tained the opinion which he acknowledged before his ecclesias- 
tical examiners, but that he had failed before to express his 
opinion in words of sufficient care,—that his faith, therefore, 
should be approved, but his book revised and amended. For 
as the Scripture says: “There is that slippeth in his speech, 
but not from his heart"! Now it he would only admit this, 
or were already saying as much, who would not most readily 
forgive those words which he had committed to writing with 
too great heedlessness and neglect, especially on his declining 
to defend the opinion which the said words contain, and 
affirming that to be his proper view which the truth approves ? 
This we must suppose was in the minds of the pious judges 
themselves; but yet, if they could only have understood the 
contents of his Latin book, duly interpreted to them, as [they 
understood] his reply to the synod which was spoken in Greek, 
and therefore quite intelligible to them, they would have ad- 
judged the former, as they did in fact the latter, as not alien 
from the Chureh. Let us go on to consider the other cases. 


1Ecclus. xix. 16. 


366 . ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. V. 





Cuap. 5. [111. ] : 

The synod of bishops then proceeded to say: * Let another 
section be read." Accordingly there was read the passage in 
the same book wherein Pelagius had laid down the position 
that “all men are ruled by their own will.” On this being 
read, Pelagius said in answer: “ This I stated in the interest 
of the freedom of our will God is its helper whenever it 
chooses good ; man, however, when sinning is himself in fault, 
as under the direction of a free will" Upon hearing this, 
the bishops exclaimed: “Nor again is this opposed to the 
doctrine of the Church" For who indeed could condemn or 
deny the freedom of the will, when God's help is associated 
with it? His opinion, therefore, as thus explained in his 
answer, was, and not without good reason, deemed satisfactory 
by the bishops. And yet, after all, the statement made in 
his book, “ All men are ruled by their own will,” ought no 
doubt to have moved the apprehensions of our brethren, who 
had discovered how much his party advanced in discussion 
against the grace of God. The bare statement, * All men are 
ruled by their own will" implies that God rules no man, and 
that the Scripture says in vain, “ Save Thy people, [O Lord,] 
and bless Thine inheritance; rule them, and lift them up for 
ever"! They would not, of course, remain in one stay, if they 
are ruled only by their own will without God, even as sheep 
which have no shepherd. Now unquestionably to be led is 
something more compulsory than to be ruled. He who is 
ruled at the same time does something himself, —indeed, when 
ruled by God, it is with the express view that he should also 
act rightly ; whereas the man who is led can hardly be under- 
stood to do anything himself at all And yet the Saviour's 
helpful grace is so much better than our own wills and 
desires, that the apostle does not hesitate to say: * As many 
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God"? 
And our free will can do nothing better for us than to submit 
itself to be led by Him who can do nothing amiss; and after 
doing this, not to doubt that it was helped to do it by Him of | 
whom it is said in the psalm, *He is my God, His mercy 
shall go before me." ? 


! Ps. xxviii. 9. ? Rom. viii, 14. "Ps dox 0) 


CHAP. VII] HOW GOD’S CHILDREN ARE LED. 367 





Cup. 6. 

Indeed, in this very book which contains these statements, 
after laying down the position, “ All men are governed by 
their own will, and every one submits himself to his own de- 
sire,’ Pelagius goes on to adduce the testimony of Scripture, 
from which it is evident enough that no man ought to trust 
to himself for direction. For on this very subject the Wisdom 
of Solomon declares: *I myself also am a mortal man like 
unto all; and the offspring of him that was first made of the 
earth,” —-with other similar words to the conclusion of the 
paragraph, where we read: “For all men have one entrance 
into life, and the like going out therefrom ; wherefore I prayed, 
and understanding was given to me; I called [upon God,] and 
the Spirit of Wisdom came into me"? Now is it not clearer 
than light itself, how that man, on duly considering the 
wretchedness of human frailty, did not dare to commit himself 
to his own direction, but prayed, and understanding was given 
to him, concerning which the apostle says: * But we have the 
mind [or understanding] of the Lord;"? and he called [upon 
God,] and the Spirit of Wisdom entered into him? Now it is 
by this Spirit, and not by the strength of their own will, that 
they who are God's children are governed and led. 

j Cuap. 7. 

As for the passage from the psalm, “ He loved cursing, and 
it shall come upon him; and he willed not blessing, so it shall 
be far removed from him,"* which he quoted as if to prove his 
own point, * that all men are ruled by their own will," who can 
be ignorant that this is not a fault of nature as God created it, 
but of that human will which departed away from God ? The 
fact indeed is, that even if he had not loved cursing, and had 
willed blessing, he would in this very case, too, deny that his 
will had received any assistance from God ; in his ingratitude 
and impiety, moreover, he would submit himself to be ruled by 
himself, until he found out to his cost, by the penalties of his 
condition, that, sunk as he was into ruin without God to govern 
him, he was utterly incapable of directing his own self. In 
like manner, from the passage which he quoted in the same 


book under the same head of his subject, “ He hath set fire and , 


1 Wisd. vii. 1. ? Wisd. vii. 6, 7. 5-J]- Cor; db 210. “Ps, olx. 18, 


— 


368 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.  [CHAP. VIII 





water before thee; stretch forth thy hand unto whether thou 
wilt; before man are good and evil, life and death, and whichever 
he liketh shall be given to him,"! it is manifest that, if he applies 
"his hand to fire, and if evil and death please him, his human will 
effects all this; but if, on the contrary, he loves goodness and 
life, not alone does his will accomplish the happy choice, but 
as it is assisted by divine grace. For purposes of darkness or 
not seeing, the eye indeed is self-sufficient; but for the pur- 
poses of sight, it is in its own luminous resources not self- 
sufficient; the assistance of a clear external light must be 
rendered to it. God forbid, however, that they who are “ the 
called according to His purpose, whom He also foreknew, and 
predestinated to be conformed to the likeness of His Son,”? 
should be given up to perish through their own wilful desire. 
This end is suffered only by *the vessels of wrath,"? who are 
perfectly prepared for perdition; in whose very destruction, 
indeed, God “makes known the riches of His glory on the 
vessels of His mercy."* Now it is on this account that, after 
saying, “He is my God, His mercy shall go before me," he 
immediately adds, * My God will show me vengeance upon my 
enemies." That therefore happens to them which is men- 
tioned in Scripture, * God gave them up to the lusts of their 
own heart.”’ This, however, does not happen to the predes- 
tinated, who are ruled by the Spirit of God, for not in vain 
is their cry: “Deliver me not, O Lord, to the sinner, accord- 
ing to my desire"? With regard, indeed, to the evil lusts 
which assail them, their prayer has: ever assumed some such 
shape as this: * Take away from me the concupiscence of the 
belly; and let not the desire of lust take hold of me.”® Upon 
those whom He governs as His subjects does God bestow this 
gift; but not upon those who think themselves capable of 
governing themselves, and who, in the stiff-necked confidence 
of their own self-will, disdain to have Him to rule over them. 
CHAF. 8. 

This being the case, howmust God's children,who have learned 

the truth of all this, and rejoice at being ruled and led by the 


! Ecclus. xv. 16, 17. ? Rom. viii. 29. *-Rom. ix. 22. 
* Rom. ix. 23. S PE 10 6 Same verse. 
7 Rom, i. 24. 5 Ps. exl. 8 (Sept.). 9? Ecclus. xxiii. 5, 6. 





CHAP. IX.] GOD'S HELP REGULATIVE. 369 





Spirit of God, have been affected when they heard or read that 
Pelagius had declared in writing that “all men are governed by 
their own will, and that every one submits himself to his own 
desire?” And yet, when questioned by the bishops, he fully 
perceived what an evil impression these words of his might pro- 
duce ; so he told them in his answer that “ he had made such an 
assertion in the interests of free will,"— adding at once, * God 
is the helper of this free will whenever it chooses good; whilst 
man is himself in fault when he sins, as being under the influ- 
ence of his own will.” Although the pious judges even approved 
of this sentiment, they were unwilling to consider or examine 
how incautiously he had written, or indeed in what sense he had 
employed the words found in his book. They thought it was 
enough that he had made such a confession concerning the free- 
dom of the will, as to admit that God helped the man who 
chose the good; whereas the man who sinned was himself to 
blame, his own inclination having all to do with his conduct 
in this direction. According to this, God rules those whom He 
assists in their choice of the good. So far, then, as they rule 
anything themselves, they rule 1t rightly, since they themselves 
are ruled by Him who is right and good. 
CHAP. 9. 

Another statement was read which Pelagius had placed 
in his book, to this effect: “In the day of judgment no 
leniency will be shown to the ungodly and the sinner; but 
they will be consumed in eternal fires" This induced the 
brethren to regard the statement as open to the objection, 
that it seemed so worded as to imply that all sinners what- 
ever ought to be punished with an eternal penalty, without 
excepting even those who hold Christ as their foundation, 
although “they build thereupon wood, hay, stubble,”* concern- 
ing whom the apostle writes: “If any man's work shall be 
burned, he shall suffer loss; but he shall himself be saved, yet 
so as by fire"? When, however, Pelagius said in his self- 
defence that “he had made his assertion in accordance with 
the Gospel, in which it is written concerning sinners, ‘ They 
shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous 
into life eternal"? it was impossible for Christian judges to 

ET Wor ait 19. * 1 Cor. rii. 15. 3 Matt. xxv. 46. 

4 2A 


970 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. x. 





be dissatisfied with a sentence which is written in the Gospel, 
and was spoken by the Lord; especially as they knew not 
what there was in the words of Pelagius' book which could so 
disturb the brethren, who were accustomed to hear his discus- 
sions, and those of his followers. Since also they were absent? 
who presented the indictment against Pelagius to the holy | 
bishop Eulogius, there was no one to urge him that he ought 
to distinguish by allowing some exceptional case between those 
sinners who must be saved by fire, and those who must be 
punished with everlasting perdition. If, indeed, the judges had 
come to understand by these means the reason why the objection 
had been made to his statement, had he then refused to allow 
the distinction, he would have been justly open to blame. 


Cnar. 10. On Origen’s error concerning the non-eternity of the punishment of 
the devil and the damned. 


What Pelagius said in addition to his last statement, “Who 
believes differently is an Origenist,’ was approved by the 
judges, because in very deed the Church most justly abominates 
the opinion of Origen, that even they whom the Lord pro- 
nounces worthy of everlasting punishment, and the devil 
himself and his angels, will be purged, and after a time, how- 
ever protracted, be released from their punishment, and shall 
then cleave to the saints who reign with God in the society 
of their blessed life. This additional sentence, therefore, the 
synod pronounced to be “not opposed to the Church,’— 
accepting it not in Pelagius’ sense, but rather in accordance 
with the Gospel, that the ungodly and sinful men whom 
eternal fires shall consume will be such as the Gospel deter- 
mines to be worthy of such a punishment; and that he is a 
sharer in Origen’s abominable opinion, who affirms that their 
punishment ‘can possibly ever come to an end, when the Lord 
has said it is to be eternal. Concerning those sinners, how- 
ever, of whom the apostle declares that “they shall be saved, 
yet so as by fire, after their [evil] work has been burnt up,"? 
inasmuch as no objectionable opinion in reference to them was 
manifestly chargeable against Pelagius, the synod determined 
nothing. Wherefore he who says that the ungodly and sinner, 
whom the truth consigns to eternal punishment, can ever be 

! The bishops Heros and Lazarus ; see above 1 [11.]. ? 1 Cor. iii. 12, 15. 





CHAP. XI.] PELAGIUS AND ORIGEN AT ISSUE. 371 





liberated therefrom, is not unfitly designated by Pelagius as 
an * Origenist.” But, on the other hand, he who supposes that 
no sinner whatever deserves. mercy in the judgment of God, 
may be designated by whatever name Pelagius is disposed to 
give to him, only it must at the same time be quite understood 
that the supposition is an error, and is not received as truth 
by the Church. “For he shall have judgment without mercy 
that hath showed no mercy"! _ 
Cap. 11. 

But how this judgment is to be accomplished, it is not easy 
to understand from Holy Scripture; for there are many modes 
therein of describing that which is to come to pass only in one 
mode. In one place the Lord.declares that He will “shut the 
door” against those whom He does not admit into His kingdom; 
and that, on their clamorously demanding admission, * Open 
unto us,... we have eaten and drunk in Thy presence,” and so 
forth, as the Scripture describes this expostulation, “He will say 
unto them in answer, I know you not, . . . all ye workers of 
iniquity."? In another passage He reminds us that He will 
command * all which would not that He should reign over them 
to be brought to Him, and be slain in His presence"? In 
another place, again, He tells us that He will come with His 
angels in His majesty; and before Him shall be gathered all 
nations, and He shall separate them one from another; some He 
will set on His right hand, and after enumerating their good 
works, will award to them eternal life; and others on His left 
hand, whose barrenness in all good works He will expose, will 
He condemn to everlasting burnings.* In two other passages 
He deals,—[in one] with that wicked and slothful servant, who : 
neglected to trade with His money, and [in the other] with 
the man who was found at the feast without the wedding 
garment,—and He orders them to be bound hand and foot, 
and to be cast into outer darkness And in yet another 
scripture, after admitting the five virgins who were wise, He 
shuts the door against the other five foolish ones.’ Now these 
descriptions,—and there are others which at the instant do not 


1 Jas. ii. 13. 2 Luke xiii, 95-97. 3 Luke xix. 27. 
4 Matt. xxv. 33. 5 Luke xix. 20-24. 6 Matt. xxii. 11-13. 
7 Matt. xxv. 1-10. 


372 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. . [CHAP. XII. 





occur to me,—are all intended to represent to us the future 
judgment, which of course will be held not over one, or oyer 
five, but over multitudes. For if it were a solitary case only 
of the man who was cast into outer darkness for not having 
on the wedding garment, He would not have gone on at once 
to give it a plural turn, by saying: * For many are called, but 
few are chosen;"! whereas it is plain that, after the one was 
cast out and condemned, many still remained behind in the 
house. However, it would occupy us too long to discuss all 
these questions to the full, This brief remark, however, I 
may make, without prejudice (as they say in affairs of money) 
to some better discussion, that by the many descriptions which 
are scattered throughout the Holy Scriptures there is signified 
to us but one mode and process of final judgment, which is 
inscrutable to our minds,—all that admits of any variety being 
the rewards and punishments which will follow men’s deserts. 
Touching the particular point, indeed, which we have before 
us at present, it is sufficient to remark that, if Pelagius had 
actually said that all sinners whatever without exception 
would be punished in an eternity of punishment by everlast- 
ing fire, then whosoever of his judges? had approved of this, 
he would, to begin with, have brought the sentence [of the 
synod] down on his own head. “For who will boast that he 
[has a pure heart, or will boldly say that he] is pure from 
sins ?"?  Forasmuch, however, as he did not say all, nor cer- 
tain, but made an indefinite statement only,—and afterwards, 
in explanation, declared that his meaning was according to the 
words of the Gospel, —his opinion was affirmed by the judg- 
ment of the bishops to be true; but it does not even now 
appear what Pelagius really thinks on the subject, and in con- 
sequence there is no indecency in inquiring further into the 
decision of the episcopal judges. 
Cuap. 12. [1v.] 

It was further objected against Pelagius, that he had 

written in his book, that *evil did not enter his thoughts." 


1 Matt. xxii. 14. 


? [Judieum ; the other reading, judicium, means, “If any one had approved of 
such a judgment,” ete. ] 


? Prov. xx. 9 (Septuagint). 


CHAP. XIIL.] EVIL THOUGHTS IMPLY CONSENT. 373 





In reply, however, to this charge, he said: * We made no such 
statement. What we did say was, that the Christian ought to 
be careful not to have evil thoughts.” Of this, as it became 
them, the bishops approved. For who can doubt that evil 
ought not to be thought of? And, indeed, if what he said in 
his book about evil not being thought runs in this form, “ nec 
cogitandum quidem," the ordinary meaning of such words is 
“that evil ought not even to be thought of" Now if any 
person denies this, what else does he in fact say, than that 
evil ought to be thought of ? And if this were true, it could 
not be said in praise of charity that “it thinketh no evil!"! 
But after all, the phrase about “not entering into the thoughts” 
of righteous and holy men is not quite a commendable one, for 
this reason, that what enters the mind is commonly called a 
thought, even when assent to it does not follow. The thought, 
however, which involves blame, and is justly forbidden, is 
never unaccompanied with assent and compliance. Possibly 
those men had an incorrect copy of Pelagius’ writings, who 
thought it proper to object to him that he had used the words : 
* Malum nec in cogitationem, venire," that is, that whatever is 
evil never entered into the thoughts of righteous and holy 
men. Which is, of course, a very absurd statement. For 
whenever we censure evil things, we cannot enunciate them 
in words, unless they have first occupied the thoughts. But, 
as we said before, that is termed a culpable thought of evil 
which carries with it the assent of our will. 
Cuap. 13. [v.] 

After the judges had accorded their approbation to this 
answer of Pelagius, another passage which he had written in 
his book was read aloud: * The kingdom of heaven was pro- 
mised even in the Old Testament.” Upon this Pelagius 
remarked in vindication: ^ This can be readily proved by the 
Scriptures. The heretics, however, in order to disparage the 
Old Testament, deny this statement; but I simply followed the 
authority of the Seriptures when I said this; for in the pro- 
phet Daniel it is written: ‘The saints of the Most High shall 
take the kingdom. "? After they had heard this answer, the 
synod said: “ This is not opposed at all to the Church's faith." 


* T. Cor, xii. b, ? Dan. vii. 18. 


374 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XIV. 





Cnar.14. The phrase ** Old Testament” used in two senses. The heir of the Old 
Testament. In the Old Testament there were heirs of the New Testament. | 
Was it therefore without reason that our brethren [the 

accusing bishops] were moved by his words to include this 

charge among the others against him? Certainly not. The 
fact is, that the phrase Old Testament is constantly employed 
in two different ways,—in one, following the authority of the 

Holy Scriptures; in the other, following the most common 

mode of speech. For the Apostle Paul says, in his Epistle to 

the Galatians: “ Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, 
do ye not hear the law ? For it is written that Abraham had 
two sons, the one by a bond-znaid, the other by a free woman. 

. . . Which things are an allegory: for these are the two 

covenants [er festaments]; the one which gendereth to bond- 

age, which is Agar. For this is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and 
is most intimately connected with the Jerusalem which now 
is, and is in bondage with her children ; whereas the Jerusalem 
which is above is free, and is the mother of us all?! N OW, 
inasmuch as the Old Testament tends to bondage, whence it 
is written, * Cast out the bond-woman and her son, for the 
son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac,"? 
whereas the kingdom of heaven tends to liberty; what has the 
kingdom of heaven to do with the Old Covenant [or Testa- 
ment]? Since, however, as I have already remarked, we are 
accustomed, in our ordinary use of words, to designate all 
those Scriptures of the law and the prophets which were 
given previous to the Lord’s incarnation, and are embraced 
together by canonical authority, under the name and title of 
the Old Testament, what man who is ever so moderately 
informed in ecclesiastical lore can be ignorant that the 
kingdom of heaven could be quite as well promised in those 
early Scriptures as even the New Testament itself, to which 
the kingdom of heaven belongs? At all events, in those 
ancient Scriptures it is most distinctly written: “ Behold, the 
days come, saith the Lord, that I will accomplish a new 
covenant [or testament] with the house of Israel and with 
the house of Jacob; not according to the covenant that I 
made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the 
! Gal. iv, 21-26, 2Gal. iv. 380. —— 


CHAP. XIV.] THE NEW MAN FOR THE NEW TESTAMENT. 375 





hand, to lead them out of the land of Egypt"! This was 
done on Mount Sinai. But then there had not yet risen the 
prophet Daniel to say: “The saints of the Most High shall 
take the kingdom."? For by these words he foretold the 
merit not of the Old, but of the New Testament. In the 
same manner did the same prophets [of the Old Testament] 
foretell that Christ Himself would come, in whose blood the 
New Covenant [or Testament] was consecrated. Of this 
Testament also the apostles became the ministers, as the most 
blessed Paul declares: * He hath made us able ministers of 
the New Testament; not in its letter, but its spirit: for 
the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life"? In that testa- 
ment, however, which is properly called the Old, and was 
given on Mount Sinai, only earthly happiness is expressly 
promised. Accordingly that land, into which the nation, after 
being led through the wilderness, was conducted, is called the 
land of promise, wherein peace and royal power, and the 
gaining of victories over enemies, and an abundance of children 
and of fruits of the ground, and gifts of a similar kind, are 
the promises of the Old Testament. And these, indeed, are 
figures of the spiritual blessings which appertain to the New 
Testament; but yet the man who lives under God's law with 
those earthly blessings for his sanction, is precisely the heir of 
the Old Testament [or Covenant,] for just such rewards are 
promised and given to him, according to the terms of the Old 
Covenant, as are the objects of his desire according to the 
condition of the old man. But whatever blessings are there 
ficuratively set forth as appertaining to the New Testament 
require the new man to give them effect. And no doubt 
the great apostle understood perfectly well what he was 
saying, when he described the two covenants [or testaments] 
as capable of the allegorical distinction of the bond-woman 
and the free,—attributing the children of the flesh to the Old 
Covenant, and to the New the children of the promise: 
“They,” says he, “which are the children of the flesh, are 
not the children of God; but the children of the promise are 
counted for the seed.”* The children of the flesh, then, 
belong to the earthly Jerusalem, which is in bondage with 


Jer xxx sl, 92, ? Dan. vii. 18. 3? 9 Cor. iii. 6. * Rom. ix. 8. 


34D. ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP, xv. 





her children ; whereas the children of the promise belong to 
the Jerusalem above, the free, the mother of us all, eternal in 
the heavens!  Whence we can easily see who they are that 
appertain to the earthly, and who to the heavenly kingdom. 
But then the happy persons, who even in that early age were 
by the grace of God taught to understand the distinction 
now set forth, were thereby made the children of promise, 
and were accounted in the secret purpose of God as heirs of 
the New Covenant [which was to come]; although they con- | 
tinued with perfect fitness to administer the Old Testament to 
the ancient people of God, because that covenant was divinely 
appropriated to that people in God's distribution of the times 
and seasons. 
Cuar. 15. 

How then should there not be a feeling of just disquietude 
entertained by the children of promise, sons of the free Jeru- 
salem, which is eternal in the heavens, when they see that by 
the words of Pelagius the distinction which has been drawn by 
Apostolic and Catholic authority is abolished, and Agar is sup- 
posed to be by some means on a par with Sarah? He therefore 
does injury to the scripture of the Old Testament with the de- 
pravity of a heretic, who with an impious and sacrilegious face 
denies that it was inspired by the good, supreme, and very God, 
—as Marcion does, as Manicheeus does, and other pests of similar 
opinions. On this account (that I may put into as brief a space 
as I can what my own views are on the subject), as much 
injury is done to the New Testament, when it is put on the 
same level with the Old Testament, as is inflicted on the Old 
itself, when men deny it to be the work of the supreme God 
of goodness, Now, when Pelagius in his answer gave as his 
reason (for saying that even in the Old Testament there was 
a promise of the kingdom of heaven), the testimony of the 
prophet Daniel, who most plainly foretold that the saints 
should receive the kingdom of the Most High, it was fairly 
decided that the statement of Pelagius was not opposed to the 
Catholic faith, although not according to the distinction which 
shows that the earthly promises of Mount Sinai are the proper 
characteristics of the Old Testament; nor indeed was the 

1 Gal. iv. 25, 26. 


CHAP. XVI.] PELAGIUS AND THE WIDOW. 377 





decision an improper one, considering that mode of speech 
which designates all the canonical Scriptures which were 
civen to men before the Lord's coming in the flesh by the title 
of the * Old Testament" The kingdom of the Most High is 
of course none other than the kingdom of God ; otherwise, any- 
body might boldly contend that the kingdom of God is one 
thing, and the kingdom of heaven another. 
Cuap. 16. [vi.] 

The next objection was to the effect that Pelagius in that 
same book of his wrote thus: “A man is able, if he likes, to 
live without sin;" and that he addressed a certain widow in 
a letter in the following fulsome strain: “In thee piety may 
^ find a dwelling-place, such as she finds nowhere else; in thee 
righteousness, though a stranger in every other place, can find 
a sojourn; that truth, which no one any longer recognises, can 
discover an abode and a friend in thee; by thee alone, more- 
over, that law of God, which almost everybody despises, is 
honoured? And in another sentence he writes: “O how 
happy and blessed art thou, when that righteousness which we 
must believe to flourish only in heaven has found a shelter 
on earth only in thy heart!" In another work addressed to 
her, after reciting the prayer of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, and teaching her in what manner saints ought to pray, 
he says: * Such an one is worthy to raise his hands to God; 
and with a good conscience does he pour out his prayer, since 
he is able to say, ‘Thou, O Lord, knowest how holy and 
harmless are the hands which I stretch out to Thee; how 
pure also they are of all injury, and iniquity, and violence; 
moreover, how righteous, and pure, and free from all deceit, are 
the lips with which I offer to Thee my supplication, that Thou 
wouldst have mercy upon me.’” ‘To all this Pelagius said 
in answer: “We asserted that a man could, if he liked, live 
without sin,and could keep God's commandments ; but that 
this power was given to him by God. but we never said 
that any man could be found who at no time whatever, from 
infancy to old age, committed sin; but that if any person were 
converted from his sins, he could by his own labour and God's 
erace live without sin. And yet nobody even thus was 
rendered incapable of change ever afterwards. As for the 


378 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.  [CHAP. XVIII. 





— 


other statements which they have made against us, they are 
not to be found in our books, nor have we at any time said 
such things.” Upon hearing this vindication, the synod put 
this question to him: “ You have denied having ever written 
such words; are you therefore ready to anathematize those who 
do hold these opinions ?" Pelagius answered : * I anathematize 
them as fools, but not as hereties, for there is no dogma in 
the business.” The bishops then pronounced their judgment 
in these words: “Since now Pelagius has with his own mouth 
anathematized this vague statement as foolish verbiage, de- 
claring in his reply, ‘That a man is able with God's assist- 
ance and grace to live without sin, let him now proceed to 
answer the other heads of accusation against him." 
Cur. 17. — 

Well now, had the judges in this case either the power 
or the right to condemn these unrecognised and vague words, 
when no person on the other side was present to prove that 
Pelagius had written the very culpable sentences which were 
alleged to have been addressed by him to the widow? In 
such a matter, it surely could not be enough to produce a 
manuscript, and to read out of it words as his, if there. were 
not also witnesses forthcoming [to identify the writing] in 
case he denied, on the words being read out, that they ever 
dropped from his pen. But even here the judges did all that 
lay in their power to do, when they asked Pelagius whether 
he would anathematize the persons who held such sentiments 
as he declared he had never himself propounded either in 
speech or in writing. And when he answered that he did 
anathematize them as fools, what right had the judges to push 
the inquiry any further on the matter, in the absence of 
Pelagius' opponents ? 

Cuap. 18. 

But perhaps the point requires some consideration, whether 
he was right in saying that “such as held the opinions in 
question deserved anathema, not as heretics, but as fools, 
since there was no dogma in the matter" The question, 
when fairly confronted, is no doubt far from being an un- 
important one,—how far a man deserves to be described as 
a heretic? On this occasion, however, the judges acted rightly 


CHAP. XVIII.] FOOLS AND HERETICS. - | 379 





in abstaining from it altogether. Let us take an instance to 
illustrate the point. If any one were to allege that eaglets 
are suspended on the talons of the parent bird, and so exposed 
to the rays of the sun, such as wink or flinch are flung to the 
ground as spurious, the light being in some mysterious way 
the gauge of their genuine nature, he is not to be accounted 
a heretic, although the story happens to be untrue.’ Now, 
since it occurs in the writings of the learned, and is very com- 
monly received as fact, ought it to be considered a foolish 
thing to mention it, even though it be not true ? much less 
ought our credit, which gains for us the name of being trust- 
worthy, to be affected, on the one hand injuriously if the 
story be believed by us, or beneficially if disbelieved? If, to 
go a step further in illustration, any one were from this in- 
stance to contend that there existed in birds reasonable souls, 
from the notion that human souls at intervals passed into 
them, then indeed we should have to reject from our mind and 
ears alike an idea like this as the rankest heresy ; and even 
if the story about the eagles were true (as there are many 
curious facts about bees confest to the most common observa- 
tion), we should still have to consider, and even demonstrate, 
the great difference that exists between the condition of crea- 
tures like these, which are quite irrational, however surprising 
in their powers of sensation, and the nature which is com- 
mon (not to human beings and brute animals, but) to men 
and angels. There are, to be sure, & great many foolish things 
said by foolish and ignorant persons, which yet fail to prove 
them heretics. One might instance the silly talk so commonly 
heard about the pursuits of other people, from persons who 
have never learned these pursuits; equally hasty and unten- 
able are the judgments they express, whether in the shape of 
excessive and indiscriminate praise of those they love, or of 
blame in the case of those they happen to dislike. The same 
remark might be made concerning the usual current of human 
conversation: whenever it does not touch on a subject which 
requires dogmatic accuracy of statement, but is thrown out at 


1 [Tt is told by Pliny, Hist. Nat. x. 3 (3), and Lucan, Pharsalia, ix. 902, etc. 
2 [Creditum, however, is read in both clauses; we should expect non creditum 
in one, as one reading has it. ] 


380 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XIX. 





random, or suggested by the passing moment, it is too often 
pervaded by foolish levity, whether uttered by the mouth or 
expressed in writing. Many persons, indeed, when gently 
reminded of their reckless gossip, have afterwards much re- 
gretted their conduct; [its only excuse was its utter thought- 
lessness, for] they scarcely recollected what they had never 
uttered with a fixed purpose, but had poured forth in a sheer 
volley of casual and unconsidered words. It is, unhappily, 
almost impossible to be quite clear of such faults. Who is he 
“that slippeth not in his tongue," and * offendeth not in 
word?"? It, however, makes all the difference in the world, 
to what extent, and from what motive, and whether in fact at 
all, à man when warned of his fault corrects it, or obstinately 
clings to it so as to make a dogma and settled opinion of that 
which he had not at first uttered on purpose, but only in 
levity. Although, then, it turns out eventually that every 
heretic is a fool, it does not follow that every fool must on the 
nonce be dubbed a heretie. The judges were quite right in 
saying that Pelagius had anathematized the vague folly under 
consideration by its fitting designation; for even if it were 
heresy, there could be no doubt of its being foolish prattle. 
Whatever, therefore, it was, they designated the offence under 
a general name. But whether the quoted words had been 
used with any definitely dogmatic purpose, or only in a vague 
and indeterminate sense, and with an unmeaningness which 
should be capable of an easy correction, they did not deem it 
necessary to discuss on the present occasion, since the man 
who was on his trial before them denied that the words were 
his at all, in whatever sense they had been employed. 
CHAP. 19. 

Now it so happened that, while we were reading this 
defence of Pelagius in the small paper which we received at 
first,’ there were present certain holy brethren, who said that 
they had in their possession some hortatory or consola- 
tory works which Pelagius had addressed to a widow lady 
whose name did not appear, and they advised us to examine 
whether the words which he had abjured for his own occurred 


! See Ecclus. xix. 16. ? See Jas. iii. 2. 
? See below, in chap. 57. [xxxir.] 


CHAP. XX.] DUBIOUS FEARS ABOUT PELAGIUS. 981 





anywhere in these books. They were not themselves aware 
whether they did or not. The said books were accordingly 
read through, and the words in question were actually dis- 
covered in them. Moreover, they who had produced the copy 
of the book, affirmed that four years had almost passed away 
since they first regarded the contents as really the work of 
Pelagius, nor had they once heard a doubt expressed about 
his authorship. Considering, then, from the integrity of these 
servants of God, which was very well known to us, how im- 
possible it was for them to use deceit in the matter, the con- 
clusion seemed inevitable, that Pelagius must be supposed by 
us to have rather been the deceiver at his trial before the 
bishops; only we thought it was quite possible that something 
might, even all those years before, have been put out in his 
name, although not actually composed by him, for not even 
did our informants tell us that they had received the books 
from Pelagius himself, nor had they ever heard him admit his 
own authorship. Now,in my own case, certain of our brethren 
have told me that sundry writings have found their way into 
Spain under my name. Such persons, indeed, as had read my 
genuine writings could not recognise those others as mine; 
although by other persons my authorship of them was quite 
believed. 


Cnar. 20. [vir. ]—Pelagius acknowledges the doctrine of grace in deceptive 
terms. 


There can be no doubt that what Pelagius has acknow- 
ledged as his own views is as yet a very obscure affair. I 
suppose, however, that it will become apparent in the sub- 
sequent details of these synodal proceedings. Now he says: 
“We have affirmed that a man is able, if he likes, to live 
without sin, and to keep the commandments of God, inasmuch 
as God gives him this ability. But we have not said that 
any man can be found, who from infancy to old age has never 
committed sin; but that if any person were converted from 
his sins, he could by his own exertion and God’s grace live 
without sin. Nobody, however, even thus was ever rendered 
incapable of change afterwards.” Now it is quite uncertain 
what he means in these words by the grace of God; and the 
judges, Catholic as they were, could not possibly understand 


382 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. xx. 





by the phrase anything else than the grace which is so very 
strongly recommended to us in the apostle's teaching. Now 
this is the grace whereby we hope that we can be delivered 
from the body of this death through our Lord Jesus Christ 
and for the obtaining of which we pray that we may not be 
led into temptation? This grace is not nature, but it renders 
assistance to frail and impaired nature. This grace is not the 
knowledge of the law, but is that of which the apostle says: 
*I will not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness 
come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain"? Therefore 
it is not “the letter that killeth, but the life-giving spirit.”* 
For the knowledge of the law, without the grace of the Spirit, 
produces all kinds of concupiscence in man ; for, as the apostle 
says, “I had not known sin but by the law: I had not known 
lust, unless the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But 
sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me 
all manner of concupiscence.”® By saying this, however, he 
blames not the law; he rather praises it, for he says after- 
wards: * The law indeed is holy, and the commandment holy, 
and just, and good" And he goes on to ask: * Was then 
that which is good made death unto me? God forbid. But 
sin, that it might appear sin, wrought death in me by that 
which is good.” And, again, he praises the law by saying: 
“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold 
under sin. For that which I do I know not: for what I 
would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I 
do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is 
good.”* Observe, then, he knows the law, praises it, and con- 
sents to it; for what it commands, that he also wishes; and 
what it forbids, and condemns, that he also hates: but for all 
that, what he hates, that he actually does. There is in his 
mind, therefore, a knowledge of the holy law of God, but still 
his evil concupiscence is not cured. He has a good will 
within him, but still what he does is evil. Hence it comes to 
pass that, amidst the mutual strugeles of the two laws within 
him,—‘“the law in his members warring against the law of 


1 Rom. vii. 24, 25. ? Matt. vi. 18. = Gala 9L. 


42 Cor. iii. 6. 5 Rom. vii. 7, 8. 6 Rom. vii. 12. 
7 Rom. vii. 18. . 8 Rom. vii. 14-10. 


/ 





CHAP. XXIL] THE VIVIFYING POWER OF GRACE. 383 





his mind, and making him captive to the law of sin,"—he 
confesses his misery, and exclaims in such words as these: 
“© wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from 
this body of death? I thank God; through Jesus Christ our 
Lord."? 

Cnap. 21. [vrir.] 

It is not nature, you may be well assured, which, sold as 
it is under sin and wounded by the ruin, longs for a Re- 
deemer and Saviour; nor is it the knowledge of the law— 
through which comes the discovery, not the expulsion, of sin 
—-which delivers us from the body of this death; but it is 
the Lord's good grace through our Lord Jesus Christ? 

Cuap. 21. [1x.] 

This grace is not expiring nature, nor the slaying letter, 
. but the vivifying spirit; for already did he possess nature 
with freedom of will, because he said: “To will is present 
with me.’* Nature, however, in a healthy condition and 
without a flaw, he did not possess, for he said: “I know that 
in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth nothing good."* Already 
had he the knowledge of God’s holy law, for he said: “I 
had not known sin but through the law;”° yet for all that 
he did not possess strength and power to practise and fulfil 
righteousness, for he complained: “ What I would, that do 
I not; but what I hate, that do L"" And again, “How to 
accomplish that which is good I find not"? Therefore it is 
not from the liberty of the human will, nor from the precepts 
of the law, that there arises deliverance from the body of this 
death; for both of these he had already,—the one in his 
nature, the other in his learning; but all he wanted was the 
help of the grace of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Cur. 22. [x.]— The Synod supposed that the grace acknowledged by Pelagius 
was that which was so thoroughly known to the Church. 

This grace, then, which was most completely known in the 
Catholie Church (as the bishops were well aware), they sup- 
posed Pelagius made confession of, when they heard him say 
that “a man, when converted from his sins, is able by his own 
exertion and the grace of God to live without sin.” For my 


- 1 Rom. vii. 28. ? Rom. vii. 24, 25. 3 Rom. vii. 25. * Rom. vii. 18. 
5 Nom. vii. 18. 6 Rom. vii. 7. 7 Rom. vii. 15. 8 Rom. vii. 18. 


384 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XXII. 
own part, however, I remembered the treatise which had been 
given to me, that I might refute it, by those servants of God, 
who had been Pelagius followers! They, notwithstanding 
their great affection for him, plainly acknowledge that the 
work was his; and that, on their proposing this question [to 
him,] because he had already given offence to very many per- 
sons from advancing views against the grace of God, he most 
expressly admitted that “what he meant by God's grace was 
the circumstance that, when our nature was created, it received 
[from Him] the possibility of avoiding sin, because it was 
created with a free will.” Remembering, therefore, as I do, 
this treatise, I cannot help feeling still anxious, whilst many 
- of the brethren, who are so well acquainted with his discus- 
sions, share in my anxiety, lest under the ambiguity which 
notoriously characterizes his words there lie some latent re- 
serve, and lest he should afterwards tell his followers that it 
was without prejudice to his own doctrine that he made any 
admissions,—as when he said: *I no doubt asserted that a 
man was able by his own exertion and the grace of God to 
live without sin; but you know very well what I mean by 
grace; and you may recollect in your perusal [of my book] 
that grace is that [condition] in which we are created by God: 
with a free will" Accordingly, while the bishops understood 
him to mean the grace by which we have by adoption been 
made new creatures, not that by which we were created (for 
most plainly does Holy Scripture instruct us in the former 
sense of grace as the true one), ignorant of his being a heretic, 
they acquitted him as a Catholic? I must say that my sus- 
picion is excited also by the circumstance, that in the work 
[by Pelagius] which I answered, he most openly said that 
"righteous Abel never sinned at all"? Just now, however, 
he thus expressed himself: * But we never said that any man 
could be found who at no time whatever, from infancy to old 
age, committed sin; but that,if any man were converted from 





! [Timasius and Jacobus, to whom Augustine addressed his book De Naturá 
et Gratid. | 

* [The reader may consult the treatise De Natura et Gratid, chapters 53 and 
54, on this opinion of Pelagius. ] 

3 [See De Naturd et Gratid, xxxvii. (44), ] 





CHAP. XXIIL] CERTAIN OPINIONS OF C(ELESTIUS. 385 





his sins, he could by his own labour and God's grace live 
without sin.”! Now, when speaking of righteous Abel, he did 
not say that after being converted from his sins he became 
sinless in a new life, but absolutely that he never com- 
mitted sin at all If, then, that book be his [in which occurs 
the statement about Abel] it must of course be corrected and 
amended from his answer [before the synod.] I should be 
indeed sorry to say that he was insincere in his more recent 
statement; for he would probably say that he had forgotten 
what he had previously written in the book we have quoted. 
Let us therefore direct our view to what afterwards occurred. 
Now, from the sequel of these ecclesiastical proceedings, we 
can by God's help show that, although Pelagius, as some 
suppose, cleared himself in his examination, and was at all 
events acquitted by his judges (who were, however, but human 
beings after all), that this great heresy,’ which we should be 
most unwilling to see making further progress or becoming 
aggravated in guilt, was undoubtedly itself condemned. 
Cuap. 23. [x1.]— e breviates of Colestius objected to Pelagius, but 
repudiated by him. 

Then follow sundry statements charged against Pelagius, 
which are said to be found among the opinions of his disciple 
Ceelestius: how that “Adam was created subject to death, 
and that he must have died whether he had sinned or not; 
that Adam's sin hurt only himself and not the human race; 
that the law no less than the gospel leads us to the kingdom 
[of heaven;] that there were sinless men previous to the 
coming of Christ; that new-born infants are in the same con- 
dition as Adam was before he fell; that the entire human 
race does not, on the one hand, die owing to Adam's death 
and transgression, nor, on the other hand, does the whole 
human race rise again through the resurrection of Christ.” 
These objections against him proceeded to such a length, that 
they are even said to have been, after a full hearing, con- 
demned at Carthage by your holiness and other bishops asso- 
ciated with you? I was not present on that occasion, as you 
will recollect; but afterwards, on my arrival at Carthage, I 

! [See above, ch. 16. (v1.)] ? Hane talem heresim. 
3 [Compare Augustine's work De Peccato Originali, ch. xi. (12).] 
4 2B 


386 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XXIV. 





read over the Acts of the synod, some of which I perfectly 
well remember, but I hardly know whether all the tenets 
now mentioned occur among them. But what matters it if 
some of them were possibly not mentioned, and so not included 
in the condemnation of the synod? It is quite clear that 
they deserve condemnation. Sundry other points of error 
were next alleged against him, connected with the mention of 
my own name. They had been transmitted to me from Sicily, 
some of our Catholie brethren there being perplexed by these 
questions; and I drew up a reply to them in a little work 
addressed to Hilary? who had consulted me respecting them 
in a letter. My answer, in my opinion, was a sufficient one. 
These are the errors referred to: * That & man is able to live 
without sin if he likes. That infants, even if they die un- 
baptized, have eternal life. That rich men, even if they are 
baptized, unless they renounce and give up all, have, what- 
ever good they may seem to have done, nothing of it reckoned 
to them; neither can they possess the kingdom of God.” 
Cuap. 24. 

The following, as the proceedings testify, was Pelagius’ 
own answer to these charges against him: “ Concerning 
a man’s being able indeed to live without sin, we have 
spoken," says he, “already ; concerning the fact, however, that 
before the Lord's coming there were persons without sin, we 
say now that, previous to Christ's advent, some men lived 
holy and righteous lives, according to the tradition of the 
sacred Scriptures. The other points were never advanced by 
me, as even their testimony goes to show, to whom, however, I 
do not feel that I am in any way responsible. But for the 
satisfaction of the holy synod, I anathematize those who either 
now hold, or have ever held, these opinions.” After hearing 
this answer of his, the synod said: * With regard to these 
charges aforesaid, Pelagius has in our presence given us suffi- 
cient and proper satisfaction, whilst he anathematizes the 
opinions which were none of his" We see, theréfore, and 
firmly believe that the most dangerous points of this heresy 
were condemned, not only by Pelagius, but also by the holy 


1 [See same treatise as before, and same chapter. ] 
? [See Augustine's letter to Hilary, in Epist. 157.] 


CHAP. Xxv.] DISAVOWED BY PELAGIUS. 387 





bishops who presided over that inquiry. The position that 
* Adam was made mortal ;" (and, that the meaning of this state- 
ment might be more clearly understood, it was added that 
“he must have died whether he had sinned or not;) that his 
sin injured only himself and not the human race; that the 
law, no less than the gospel, leads us to the kingdom [of 
heaven ;] that new-born infants are in the same condition as 
Adam was before he fell; that the entire human race does 
not, on the one hand, die in consequence of Adam’s death and 
transgression, nor, on the other hand, does the whole human 
race rise again through the resurrection of Christ; that in- 
fants, even if they die unbaptized, have eternal life; that rich 
men, even if baptized, unless they renounce and give up all, 
have, whatever good they may seem to have done, nothing of 
it reckoned to them, neither can they possess the kingdom of 


God ;’—all these opinions, at any rate, were clearly con- | 


demned in that ecclesiastical court,—Pelagius pronouncing 
the anathema, and the bishops the interlocutory sentence. 
CnAr. 25. The Pelagians falsely pretended that the Eastern Churches were 
on their side. 

Now, by reason of these questions, and that very contentious 
assertion of these tenets, which is everywhere accompanied 
with heated feelings, many weak brethren are disturbed. We 
have accordingly, in the anxiety of that love which it becomes 
us to feel towards the Church of Christ through His grace, 
and out of regard to Marcellinus of blessed memory (who used 
to be extremely vexed day by day by these disputers, and 
who used by letter to ask my advice), been obliged to write 
on some of these questions, and especially on the baptism of 
infants. On this same subject also I afterwards, at your 
request, and assisted by your prayers, delivered an earnest 
address, to the best of my ability, in the church of the Majores; 
holding in my hands an epistle of the most glorious martyr 
Cyprian, and reading therefrom his words, on which I also 
largely discoursed, in order'to remove this dangerous error out 
of the hearts of sundry persons, who had been persuaded to 
take up with the opinions which, as we see, were condemned 
in the Acts of the synod. These opinions it has been 


1 [According to another reading, **the church of Majorinus."] 


388 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XXVI. 





attempted by their promoters to force upon the minds of some 
of the brethren, by threatenings, as if from the Eastern Churches, 
that unless they adopted the said opinions, they would be 
formally condemned by those Churches. Observe, however, 
that no less than fourteen bishops of the Eastern Church, 
assembled in synod in the land where the Lord manifested His 
presence in the days of His flesh, refused to acquit Pelagius 
unless he condemned these opinions as opposed to the Catholic 
faith. Since, therefore, he was then acquitted because he 
anathematized such views, it follows beyond a doubt that the 
said opinions were condemned. ‘This, indeed, will appear more 
clearly still, and on still stronger evidence, in the sequel. 
Cuap. 26. 

Let us now see what were the two points out of all 
that were alleged which Pelagius refused to anathematize. 
He admitted them to be indeed his own opinions, but to 
remove their offensive aspect he explained in what sense he 
held them. “ That a man,” says he, “is able to live without 
sin has been asserted already." Asserted no doubt, and we 
remember the assertion quite well; but still it was toned down 
to such a degree, and approved by the judges, that God's grace 
was added, concerning which nothing was said in the original 
draft of his doctrine. Touching the second, however, of these 
points, we ought to pay careful attention to what he said 
in answer to the charge against him. “Concerning the 
fact, indeed," says he, *that before the Lord's coming there 
were persons without sin, we now again assert that pre- 
vious to Christ’s advent some men lived holy and righteous 
lives, according to the tradition of the sacred Scriptures." 
He did not dare to say: * We now again assert that previous 
to Christ's advent there were persons without sin," although 
this had been laid to his charge after the very words of 
Coelestius. For he perceived how dangerous such a state- 
ment was, and into what trouble it would bring him. So he 
reduced the sentence to these harmless dimensions: * We 
again assert that before the coming of Christ there were per- 
sons who led holy and righteous lives." Of course there were: 


{Augustine mentions their names in his work contra J: ulianum, Book 1. ch. 
v. (19).] 


CHAP. XXVIL]  DONATISTS AND PELAGIANS AT ONE. 389 





who would deny it? But to say this is a very different thing 
from saying that they lived “without sin.” Because, indeed, 
those ancient worthies lived holy and righteous lives, they 
could for that very reason better confess :.“ If we say that we 
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”? 
In the present day, also, many men live holy and righteous 
lives; but yet it is no untruth they utter when in their 
prayer they say: “Forgive us our debts, even as we forgive 
our debtors.”* This avowal was accordingly acceptable to 
the judges, in the sense in which Pelagius solemnly declared 
his belief; but certainly not in the sense which Ccelestius, 
according to the original charge against him, was said to hold. 
We must now treat in detail of the topics which still remain, 
to the best of our ability. 
Cuap. 27. [x11.] 

Pelagius was charged with having said: * That the Church 
here on earth is without spot and wrinkle.’ It was on this 
point that the Donatists also were constantly at conflict with | 
us in our conference. We used, in their case, to lay especial 
stress on the mixture of bad men with good, like that of the 
chaff with the wheat; and we were led to this idea by the 
similitude of the threshing-floor We might apply the same 
illustration 1n answer to our present opponents, unless indeed 
they would have the Church consist only of good men, whom 
they assert to be without any sin whatever, that so the 
Church might be without spot or wrinkle. If this be their 
meaning, then I repeat the same words as I quoted just 
now; for how can they be members of the Church, of whom 
the voice of a genuine humility declares, “If we say that we 
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in 
us ?"? or how could the Church offer up that prayer which 
the Lord taught her to use, “Forgive us our debts,'* if in 
this world the Church is without a spot or blemish? In 
short, they must themselves submit to be strictly catechised 
respecting themselves: do they really allow that they have 
any sins of their own ? If their answer is in the negative, 
then they must be plainly told that they are deceiving them- 


PTdJohni 8. ? Matt. vi. 12. 
$ 1 John i. 8. 4 Matt. vi. 12. 


4290 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.  [CHAP. XXVIII. 





selves, and the truth is not in them. If, however, they shall 
acknowledge that they do commit sin, what is this but a 
confession of their taint and blemish? They therefore are not 
members of the Church; because the Church is without spot 
and wrinkle, while they have both. 

CuaAr. 28. 

But to this objection he replied with a watchful caution 
such as the Catholic judges no doubt approved. “It has,” 
says he, “been asserted by me,— but in such a sense that 
the Church is by the laver of baptism cleansed from every 
spot and wrinkle, and in this purity the Lord wishes her to 
continue.” Whereupon the synod said: “Of this also we 
approve.” And who amongst us denies that in baptism the 
sins of all men are remitted, and that all believers come up 
spotless and pure from the laver of regeneration? Or what 
Catholic Christian is there who wishes not, as his Lord also 
wishes, and as it is meant to be, that the Church should 
remain always without spot or wrinkle? For in very deed 
God is now in His mercy and truth bringing it about, that 
His holy Church should be conducted to that perfect state 
in which she is to remain without spot or wrinkle for 
evermore. But between the laver, where all past stains and 
deformities are removed, and the kingdom, where the Church 
will remain for ever without any spot or wrinkle, there is 
this present intermediate time of prayer, during which her cry 
must of necessity be: “ Forgive us our debts" Hence arose 
the objection against them for saying that * the Church here 
on earth is without spot or wrinkle;" from the doubt whether 
by this opinion they did not boldly prohibit that prayer 
whereby the Church in her present baptized state entreats day 
and night for herself the forgiveness of her sins. On the 
subject of this intervening period between the remission of 
sins which takes place in baptism, and the perpetuity of sin- 
lessness which is to be in the kingdom of heaven, no proceed- 
ings ensued with Pelagius, and no decision was pronounced 
by the bishops. Only he thought that some brief indication 
ought to be given that he had not expressed himself in the 
way which the accusation against him seemed to state. As 
to his saying, “This has been asserted by me,—but in such a 





CHAP. XXIX.] HOW PELAGIUS SATISFIED HIS JUDGES. 391 





sense," what else did he mean to convey than the idea that 
he had not in fact expressed himself in the same manner as he 
was supposed to have done by his accusers? The reason, how- 
ever, which induced the judges to say that they were satisfied 
with his answer [was his confession of] baptism as the means of 
being washed from our sins; and of the kingdom of heaven, in 
which the holy Church, which is now in process of cleansing, 
shall continue in a sinless state for ever: this is clear from 
the evidence, so far as I can form an opinion. 
CuHap. 29. [x11I.] 

The next objections were urged out of the book of 
Coelestius, following the contents of each several chapter, but 
rather according to the sense than the words. These indeed 
he expatiates on rather fully; they, however, who presented 
the indictment against Pelagius said that they had been unable 
at the moment to adduce all the words. In the first chapter, 
then, of Ccelestius’ book they alleged that the following was 
written: “That we do more than is commanded us in the 
law and the gospel.” To this Pelagius replied: “ This they 
have set down as my statement. What we said, however, 
was in keeping with the apostle’s assertion concerning vir- 
ginity, of which Paul writes: ‘I have no commandment of 
the Lord'"! Upon this the synod said: “This also the 
Church receives.” I have read for myself the meaning which 
Coelestius gives to this in his book,—for he does not deny that 
the book is his. Now he made this statement obviously with 
the view of persuading us that we possess through the nature 
of our free will such a possibility of &voiding sin, that we 
are able to do more than is commanded us; for a perpetual 
virginity is maintained by very many persons, and this is not 
commanded; whereas, in order to: avoid sin, it is sufficient 
to fulfil what is commanded. When the judges, however, 
accepted Pelagius answer, they did not take it to convey the 
idea that those persons keep all the commandments of the 
law and the gospel who over and above maintain the state 
of virginity, which is not commanded,—but only this, that 
virginity, which is not commanded, is something more than 
conjugal chastity, which is commanded; so that to observe 


IE Cor vil, 25. 


392 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [ CHAP. XXX. 





the one is of course more than to keep the other; whereas, at 
the same time, neither can be maintained without the grace 
of God, inasmuch as the apostle, in speaking of this very 
subject, says: “But I would that all men were even as I 
myself Every man, however, hath his proper gift of God, 
one after this manner, and another after that! And even 
the Lord Himself, upon the disciples remarking, “If the case 
of the man be so with his wife, it is not good to marry" (or, 
as the Latin better expresses it, “non expedit ducere"), said 
to them: ^ All men cannot receive this saying, save they to 
whom it is given."? This, therefore, is the doctrine which the 
bishops of the synod declared to be received by the Church, 
that the state of virginity, persevered in to the last, which is 
not commanded, is more than the chastity of married life, 
which is commanded. In what view Pelagius or Coelestius 
regarded this subject, the judges were not aware. 


Cnr. 30. [xtv.]— The more prominent points of Celestius’ work. 


After this we find objected against Pelagius some other 
points of Coelestius  teaching,— prominent ones, and un- 
doubtedly worthy of condemnation; such, indeed, as would 
certainly have involved Pelagius in condemnation, if he had 
not anathematized them in the synod. Under his third head 
Coelestius was alleged to have written: “That God's grace 
and assistance is not given for single actions, but is imparted 
in the freedom of the will,or in the law and in doctrine." 
And again: * That God's grace is given in proportion to our 
deserts; because, were He to give it to sinful persons, He 
would evidently be unrighteous.” And from these words he 
inferred that “therefore grace itself has been placed in my 
own will, according as I have been either worthy or unworthy 
of it. For if we do all things by grace, then whenever we are 
overcome by sin, it is not we who are overcome, but God's 
grace, which wanted by all means to help us, but was actually 

1 1 Cor. vii. 7. 

?[* Not expedient to take a wife.” This ‘better expression" Augustine 
substitutes for the reading ‘‘non expedit nubere,” as applied to a woman's 
taking a husband. The original, yawioos [not yapeciodas], justifies Augustine's 


preference. ] 
* Matt. xix. 10, 11. 








CHAP. XXXL] FURTHER DISAVOWAL OF C(ELESTIUS. 393 





unable? And once more he says: * If, when we conquer sin, it 
is by the grace of God; therefore it is He who is in fault when- 
ever we are vanquished by sin, because He was either altogether 
unable or wholly unwilling to keep us safe.” To these charges 
Pelagius replied: “Whether these are really the opinions of 
Ccelestius or not, is the concern of those who say that they 
are. For my own part, indeed, I never entertained such 
views; on the contrary, I- anathematize every one who does 
entertain them.” Then the synod said: “This holy synod 
accepts you for your condemnation of these impious words." 
Now certainly there can be no mistake, in regard to these 
opinions, either as to the clear way in which Pelagius pro- 
nounced on them his anathema, or as to the absolute terms 
in which the bishops condemned them. It is left quite 
in doubt, or in the dark, whether Pelagius ever held these 
sentiments, or still holds them,—or Ccelestius, or both of 
them, or neither, or other persons with them, or in their 
name. By this judgment of the bishops, however, it has been 
declared plainly enough that the opinions in question were 
condemned, and that Pelagius would have been condemned 
along with them, unless he had himself actually condemned 
them too. Now, after this trial, it is certain that whenever 
we enter on a controversy touching opinions of this kind, we 
only diseuss an already condemned heresy. 
Cnar. 31. 

I shall make my next remark with greater satisfaction. 
In a former section I expressed a fear! that, when Pelagius 
said that *a man was able by the help of God's grace to 
live without sin,” he perhaps meant by the term ^ grace" 
the capability possessed by nature as created by God with a 
free will as it is understood in that book which I received 
as his, and to which I replied ;? and that by these means 
he was deceiving the judges, who were ignorant of the 
circumstances. Now, however, since he anathematizes those 
persons who hold that * God's grace and assistance is not given 
for single actions, but is imparted in the freedom of the will, 


1 [See above, (20).] 
? [He refers to Pelagius' work which Augustine received from Jacobus and 
Timasius, and against which he wrote his treatise De NV aturá et Gratid. | 


394 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XXXI. 





or in the law and in doctrine,” it is quite evident that he 
really means the grace which is preached in the Church of © 
Christ, and is conferred by the ministration of the Holy 
Ghost, for the purpose of helping us in each detail of our 
conduct, whence it is that we pray for needful and suitable 
grace that we enter not into any temptation. Nor, again, 
have I any longer a fear that, when he said, *No man can 
be without sin unless he has acquired a knowledge of the 
law," and added this explanation of his words, that “he 
perhaps regarded a knowledge of the law as a help towards 
the avoidance of sin,"' he at all meant the said knowledge to 
be considered as tantamount to the grace of God ; for, observe, 
he anathematizes such as hold this opinion. See, too, how 
he refuses to hold our natural free will, or the law and 
doctrine, as equivalent to that grace of God which helps us 
through our single actions. "What else then is left to him but 
to understand that grace which the apostle tells us is given 
by “the supply [or administration] of the Spirit?"? This 
is what the Lord meant when He said: * Take no thought 
how or what ye shall speak ; for it shall be given you in that 
same hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, 
but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you"? Nor, 
again, need I be under any apprehension that, when he 
asserted, “ All men are ruled by their own will" and after- 
wards explained that he had made that statement “in the 
interest of the freedom of our will, of which God is the 
helper whenever it makes choice of good,"* that he perhaps 
here also held God's helping grace as synonymous with our 
natural free will and the teaching of the law. For inasmuch 
as he rightly anathematized the persons who hold that God's 
grace or assistance is not given for single actions, but lies 
[generally] in the gift of free will, or in the law and doctrine, 
it follows, of course, that God's grace or assistance is given us 
for single actions,—free will, or the law and the doctrine, 
being left out of all consideration in such a matter; and thus 
through all the particulars of our life, when we act rightly, we 
are ruled and directed by God ; nor is our prayer a useless one, 


! [See above, (2).] ? Phil. i. 19 [izizzopnryim x. Y». ]. 
= Matt. x. 19, 20, * [See above, (5).] 





— — C a ie 





CHAP. XXXII.] MANY GIFTS OF ST. PAUL. 395 





wherein we say: * Order my steps, [O Lord,] according to Thy 
word, and let not any iniquity have dominion over me."! 
Cnar. 32. 
- But what comes afterwards again fills me with anxiety. 


-On its being objected to him, from the fifth chapter of Cceles- 


tius book, that * they say every individual has the faculty 
of possessing all powers and graces, thus taking away that 
‘diversity of gifts’ which the apostle sets forth," Pelagius 
replied: “We have certainly said so much; but yet they 
have laid against us a malignant and blundering charge. We 
do not take away the diversity of gifts; but we declare that 
God gives to the person, who has proved himself worthy to 
receive them, all graces, even as He conferred them on the 
Apostle Paul" Hereupon the synod said: “ You accordingly 
do yourself hold the doctrine of the Church touching the gift 
of the graces, which are collectively possessed by the apostle.” 
Here some one may say, Why then is he anxious? Do you 
on your side deny that all the powers and graces were com- 
bined in the apostle? For my own part, indeed, if all those 
are to be understood which the apostle has himself mentioned 
together in one passage,—as, I suppose, the bishops under- 
stood Pelagius to mean when they approved of his answer, 
and pronounced it to be in keeping with the sense of the 
Church, —then I do not doubt that the apostle had them all; 
for he says: * Ànd God hath set some in the Church, first, 
apostles; secondarily, prophets; thirdly, teachers; after that 
miracles ; then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities 
of tongues"? What then shall we say, that the Apostle 
Paul did not possess all these gifts himself? Who would be 
bold enough to assert this? The very fact that he was an 
apostle showed, of course, that he possessed the grace of the 
apostolate. He possessed also the gift of prophecy; for was 
not that a prophecy of his in which he says: “In the last 
times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to se- 
ducing spirits, and doctrines of devils?"? He was, moreover, 
“the teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.”* He per- 
formed miraclés also and cures; for he shook off from his 


1 Ps. cxix. 138. 3 1 Cor. xii. 28. 
SI a li. | I'm, dn. 4 


396 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XXXII. 





hand, unhurt, the biting viper ;* and the cripple [of Lystra] 
stood upright on his feet at the apostle’s word, and his strength 
was at once restored.” It is not clear what he means by 
“helps, for the term is of very wide application; but who 
can say that he was wanting even in this grace, when through 
his labours such helps were manifestly afforded towards the 
salvation of mankind? Then as to his possessing the grace - 
of “ government,’ what could be more excellent than his 
administration, when the Lord at that time governed so many 
churches by his personal agency, and governs them still in 
our day through his epistles ? And in respect of the “ diver- 
sities [or kinds] of tongues,’ what tongues could have been 
wanting to him, when he says himself: *I thank my God that 
I speak with tongues more than you all?"? It being thus in- 
evitable to suppose that not one of these gifts and graces was 
wanting to the Apostle Paul, the judges approved of Pelagius' 
answer, wherein he said “that all graces were conferred upon 
him" But there are other graces in addition to these which 
are not mentioned here. For it is not to be supposed, how- 
ever greatly the Apostle Paul excelled others as a member of 
Christ's body, that the very Head itself of the entire body did 
not receive more and ampler graces still, whether in His flesh 
or His soul as man ; for such a created nature did the Word of 
God assume as His own into union with His [divine] Person, 
that He might so be our Head, and we His body. And in 
very deed, if all gifts could be in each member, it would be 
evident that the similitude, which is used to illustrate this 
subject, of the several members of our body is inapplicable ; 
for some things are common to the members in general, such 
as life and health, whilst other things are peculiar to the 
separate members, since the ear has no perception of colours, 
nor the eye of voices. Hence it is written: *If the whole 
body were an eye, where were the hearing? if the whole were 
hearing, where were the smelling ?"* Now this of course is 
not said as if it were impossi o for God to impart to the ear 
the sense of seeing, or to the eye the function of hearing. 
However, what He ae in Christ's body, which is the Church, 


1 Acts xxviii. 5. ? Acts xiv. 8, 9. 
#1 Cor, xiv. 18. flCor xnl 





CHAP. XXXIIL] SUSPICIOUS WORDS OF PELAGIUS. 397 





and what the apostle meant by diversity of graces,’ as if through 
the different members, that there might be gifts proper even to 
every one separately, is clearly. known. Why, too, and on what 
ground they who raised the objection were so unwilling to have 
taken away all difference in graces, why, moreover, the bishops 
of the synod were able to approve of the answer given by Pela- 
gius in deference to the Apostle Paul, in whom we admit the 
combination of all those graces which he mentioned in the one 
particular passage, is by this time clear also. 
CHAP. 33. 

What, then, is the reason why, as I said just now, I 
felt anxious on the subject of this head of his doctrine? It 
is occasioned by what Pelagius says in these words: “ That 
God gives to the man, who has proved himself worthy to 
receive them, all graces, even as He conferred them on the 
Apostle Paul.” Now, I should not have felt any anxiety 
about this answer of Pelagius, if it were not closely connected 
with the cause which we are bound to guard with the utmost 
care—even that God’s grace may never be attacked, while we 
are silent or dissembling in respect of so great an evil As, 
therefore, he does not say, that God gives to whom He will, 
but that “God gives to the man, who has proved himself worthy 
to receive them, all these gifts,’ I could not help being suspi- 
cious, when I read such words. For the very name of grace, 
and the thing that is meant by it, is taken away, if it is not 
bestowed gratuitously, but he only receives it who is worthy 
of the gift. Will anybody say that I do the apostle wrong, 
because I do not admit him to have been worthy of grace? 
Nay, I should indeed rather do him wrong, and bring on 
myself a punishment, if I refused to believe what he himself 
says. Well, now, has he not pointedly so defined grace as to 
show that it is so called because it is bestowed gratuitously ? 
These are his own very words: “And if by grace, then is it 
no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace"? In 
accordance with this, he says again: “Now to him that 
worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt.”® 

[Another reading has Ecclesiarum, instead of gratiarum ; q.d. ‘‘ difference 


in churches.’’] 
2 oin, xi, 6. ; 3 Rom. iv. 4. 


398 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XXXIV. 





If any man, however, is worthy of grace, there is a debt of it 
due to him; and if it is thus due to him, it ceases to be 
grace; for grace is freely given, but a debt is paid as due. 
Grace, therefore, is bestowed on those who are unworthy, that 
a debt may be paid to them when they become worthy. He, 
however, who has bestowed on the unworthy the gifts which 
they possessed not before, does Himself take care that they 
shall have whatever things He means to recompense to them 
when they become worthy. 
Cnuar. 34.—On the works of unbelievers ; faith is the initial principle from 
which good works have their beginning ; faith is the gift of God’s grace. 

He will perhaps say: It was not because of his works, but 
in consequence of his faith, that I said the apostle was worthy 
of having all those great graces bestowed upon him. His 
faith deserved this distinction, but not his works, which were 
not good previous [to his faith] Well, then, are we to sup- 
pose that faith does not produce any works? Surely faith 
does work in a very real way, for it “worketh by love.”? 
Preach up, however, as much as you like, the works of un- 
believing men, we still know how true and invincible is the 
statement of this same apostle: “ Whatsoever is not of faith is 
sin"? The very reason, indeed, why he so often declares that 
righteousness is imputed to us, not because of our works, but 
our faith, whereas faith rather works through love, is that no 
man should think that he arrives at faith itself through the 
merit of his works; for it is faith which is the initial prin- 
ciple whence good works first proceed; since (as has already 
been stated) whatsoever comes not from faith itself is sin. 
Accordingly, it is said to the Church, in the Song of Songs: 
“Thou shalt come and pass by from the beginning of faith."? 
Although, therefore, faith procures the grace of producing 
good works, we do not deserve by our faith that we should 
have faith itself bestowed upon us; but, in its bestowal upon 
us, in order that we might follow the Lord by its help, * His 
mercy has prevented us."* Was it we ourselves that gave it 
tous? Did we ourselves make ourselves faithful? I must 


* Gal. 6. ? Rom. xiv. 23. 
3 ['EAtózg xal Version dad Gps riorews.] Cant. iv. 8 (Sept.). 
* Pa Hx 10; 





CHAP. XXXV.] ALL IS OF GRACE. 399 





by all means at. this idea emphatically say: “It is He that 
hath made us, and not we ourselves"! And indeed nothing 
else than this is pressed upon us in the apostle's teaching, 
when he says: “For I declare, through the grace that is given 
unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of 
himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think 
soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the mea- 
sure of faith"? Whence, too, arises the well-known challenge: 
“What hast thou that thou didst not receive?"? inasmuch 
as we have received even that which is the spring from which 
everything we have of good in our actions takes its beginning. 
Cuap. 35. 

What, then, is the meaning of that which the same 
apostle says: “ I have fought a good fight, I have finished my 
course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous 
judge, shall give me at that day” ?* If this is not a recom- 
pense paid to the worthy, is it anyhow a gift bestowed on 
the unworthy ? He who says this, does not consider that the 
crown could not have been given to the man who is worthy 
of it, unless grace had been first bestowed on him whilst 
unworthy of it. He says indeed: “I have fought a good 
fight ;”’ but then he also says: “Thanks be to God, who 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ"? He 
says too: “I have finished my course ;” but he says again: “It 
is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of 
God that showeth mercy.”’ He says, moreover: “I have kept 
the faith ;” but then it is he too who says again: “I know 
whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to 
keep my deposit against that day”—that is, “ what I have com- 
mitted to His keeping;" for some copies have not the word 
depositum, but commendatum, which yields a plainer sense? 
Now, what do we commit to God's keeping, except the things 
which we pray Him to preserve for us, and amongst these our 


PP. 3: 3 Rom. xii. 3. Core iv, x 2 Tims ake 5 
2 Vim, ivi 7. *1 Ooroxw DK 7 Rom. ix. 16. 
$2 Tim. i. 12. [St. Paul's phrase, ez» mepatáxz» pov, has been taken in two 
senses, as (1) what God had entrusted to him ; and (2) what the apostle had 
entrusted to God's keeping. St. Augustine, it will be seen, here takes the latter 
sense. ] 


400 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.  [CHAP. XXXVI. 





very faith? For what else did the Lord procure for the 
Apostle Peter by His prayer for him, of which He said, “I 
have prayed for thee, Peter, that thy faith fail not,"? than that 
God would preserve his faith, that it should not fail by giving 
way to temptation ? Therefore, blessed Paul, thou great 
preacher of grace, I will say it without fear of any man (for 
who will be less angry with me for so saying than thyself, 
who hast told us what to say, and taught us what to teach ?) 
—— will, I repeat, say it, and fear no man for the assertion: 
Thy merits are recompensed with their own crown of reward ; 
but thy merits are the gifts of God ! 

Crar. 36.— The monk Pelagius. Grace is conferred on the unworthy. 

His due reward, therefore, is recompensed to the apostle as 
worthy of it; but still it was grace which bestowed on him the 
apostleship itself, which was not his due, and of which he was 
not worthy. Shall I be sorry for having said this? God 
forbid! For under his own testimony shall I find a ready 
protection from such reproach; nor will any man charge me 
with audacity, unless he be himself audacious enough to 
charge the apostle with mendacity. He frankly says, nay he 
protests, that he commends the gifts within himself as God's 
gifts, so that he glories not in himself at all, but glories in 
the Lord;? he not only declares that he possesséd no good 
deserts in himself why he should be made an apostle, but he 
even mentions his own demerits, in order to manifest and 
preach the grace of God. “I am not meet,” says he, “to be 
called an apostle ;”* and what else does this mean than “I 
am not worthy” ?—as indeed several Latin copies read the 
phrase. Now this, to be sure, is the very gist of our question ; 
for undoubtedly in this grace of apostleship all those graces 
are contained [which are the subject of our discussion]. For 
it was neither convenient nor right that an apostle should not 
possess the gift of prophecy, nor be a teacher, nor be illus- 
trious for miracles and the gifts of healings, nor furnish need- 


1 [There seems to be a corruption in the text here: ‘‘Quid aliud apostolo 
Petro Dominus commendavit orando." Another reading inserts de before the 
word apostolo. Our version is rather of the apparent sense than of the words 
of the passage. ] 

? Luke xxii. 32, 31 Cor. i. 31. Uc E Eon XV 


CHAP. XXXVI.] GRACE PRECEDES WORK. 401 





ful helps, nor provide governments over the churches, nor excel 
in diversities of tongues. All these functions the one name 
of apostleship embraces. Let us, therefore, consult the man 
himself, nay listen wholly to him. Let us say to him: 
Holy Apostle Paul, the monk Pelagius declares that thou. 
wast worthy to receive all the graces of thine apostleship. 
What dost thou say thyself? He answers: “I am not 
worthy to be called an apostle.” Shall I then, under pre- 
tence of honouring Paul, in a matter concerning Paul, dare 
to believe Pelagius in preference to Paul? I will not do 
so; for if I did, I should only prove to be more onerous to 
myself than honourable to him. Let us hear also why he is 
not worthy to be called an apostle: “ Because,” says he, “I 
persecuted the Church of God."? Now, were we to follow up 
the idea here expressed, who would not judge that he rather 
deserved from Christ condemnation, instead of an apostolic 
call? Who could so love the preacher as not to loathe the 
persecutor? Well, therefore, and truly does he say of him- 
self: “I am not worthy to be called an apostle, because I 
persecuted the Church of God.” As thou wroughtest then 
such evil, how camest thou to earn such good? Let all men 
hear his answer: “But by the grace of God, I am what I 
am.” Is there, then, no other way in which grace is com- 
mended, than because it is conferred on an unworthy re- 
cipient? “And His grace," he adds, “which was bestowed 
on me was not in vain.”® He says the same thing as a lesson 
to others also, to show them that their will is free to choose, 
when he says: “We then, as workers together with Him, 
beseech you also that ye receive not the grace of God in 
vain.”* Whence however does he derive his proof, that “ His 
erace bestowed on himself was not in vain,” except from the 
fact which he goes on to mention: “ But I laboured more 
abundantly than they all?"? So it seems he did not labour 
in order to receive grace, but he received grace in order that 
he might labour. And thus, when unworthy, he gratuitously - 
received grace, whereby he might become worthy to receive 


1 [This is a poor imitation of Augustine’s playful words: ‘‘ Me potius onerabo 
quam illum Aonorabo."] 
Torn xv:/9. *d Cor xv. 10. * 2: Cor. vi. 1. 5 1 Cor. xv. 10. 


4 2C 


402 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XXXVII. 





the due rewards [of his labours]. Not that he ventured even 
to claim aught for his labour; for, after saying: ^I laboured 
more abundantly than they all" he at once subjoined: * Yet 
not I, but the grace of God which was with me"! O mighty 
teacher, confessor, and preacher of grace! What meaneth 
this: *I laboured more, yet not I?" Where the will exalted 
itself ever so little, there piety was instantly on the watch, 
and humility trembled, because infirmity confessed all the 
truth. 
Cnar. 37.—John, Bishop of Jerusalem. 

With great propriety, as the proceedings show, did John, 
the holy bishop of the Church of Jerusalem, employ the 
authority of this same passage of the apostle, as he himself 
told our brethren the bishops who were his assessors at that 
trial on their asking him what proceedings had taken place 
before him previous to the trial? He told them that on the 
oceasion in question, whilst some were whispering, and re- 
marking on Pelagius statement, that * without God's grace 
man was able to attain perfection” (that is, as he had pre- 
viously expressed it, ^ man was able to live without sin”), he 
censured the statement, and reminded them besides, that even 
the Apostle Paul, after so many labours—not indeed in his 
own strength, but by the grace of God—said: “I laboured 
more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of 
God that was with me;"? and in another passage: “It is not 
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that 
showeth mercy ;"^ and [he also reminded them] of that pas- 
sage in the Psalm: * Except the Lord build the house, they 
labour but in vain who build it"? And he added: “We 
quoted several other like passages out of the Holy Scriptures. 
When, however, they did not receive the quotations which we 
made out of the Holy Scriptures, but continued their mur- 
muring noise, Pelagius said: ‘This also is what I believe; let 
him be anathema, who declares that a man is able, without 
God's help, to arrive at the perfection of all virtues,’ " 


4d Cor, xv. 10. 

? [In a conference held at Jerusalem at the end of July in the year 415, as 
described by Orosius in his Apology.] 

3 1 Cor. xv. 10. * Rom. ix. 16. 5 Ps. cxxvii. 1. 


CHAP. XXXIX.]  PELAGIUS AND THE PRESIDING BISHOP. 403 





Cuap. 38. [xv.] 

Bishop John narrated all this in the hearing of Pelagius; 
but he, of course, might respectfully say : Your holiness is in 
error; you do not accurately remember the facts. It was not 
in reference to the passages of Scripture which you have quoted 
that I uttered the words: “This also is what I believe.” Be- 

cause this is not my opinion of them. I do not understand 
them to say, that God's grace so co-operates with man, that 
his abstinence from sin is due, not to “him that willeth, nor to 
him that runneth, but to God that showeth mercy." 
Cuap. 39. [xvr.]—H eros and Lazarus ; Orosius. 

For there are some commentaries on Paul's Epistle to the 
Romans which are said to have been written by Pelagius 
himself? In one of these he asserts, that the passage: ^ Not 
of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that 
showeth mercy," was not a statement of Paul's own meaning; 
but that.he therein employed the language of controversy and 
refutation, as if implying that such a statement could not be 
properly made. No safe conclusion, therefore, can be drawn, 
although the bishop John plainly acknowledged the passage 
in question as conveying the mind of the apostle, and men- 
tioned it for the very purpose of hindering Pelagius from 
thinking that any man can avoid sin without God’s grace, and 
declared that Pelagius said in answer: “This also is what [ 
believe? Nor, indeed, upon hearing all this did he repudiate 
his admission by replying: This is not my belief. He ought, 
indeed, either to deny altogether, or unhesitatingly to correct 
and amend the above mentioned exposition, in which he would 
have it, that the apostle must not be regarded as entertaining 
the sentiment [of the passage quoted from his epistle]? but 
only as refuting it. Now, whatever Bishop John said of our 
brethren who were absent—whether our brother bishops Heros 
and Lazarus, or the presbyter Orosius, or any others whose 
names are not registered in the Acts/—II am sure that he did 
not mean it to operate to their prejudice. For, had they been 


1 Rom. ix. 16. 

? [See the treatise De Peccatorum meritis, iii. Led 3 Rom. ix. 16. 

5 Avitus, perhaps, Passerius, and Dominus ex duce, whose names do not occur 
in the Acts of the Synod of Diospolis, but are mentioned by Orosius, .A pol. 3.] 


404 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XL. 





present, they might possibly (God forbid that I should say it 
absolutely) have convicted him of untruth; at any rate they 
might perhaps have reminded him of something he had for- 
gotten, or something in which he might have been deceived 
by the Latin interpreter: not, to be sure, for the purpose of mis- 
leading him by untruth, but at least, owing to some difficulty 
occasioned by a foreign language, only imperfectly understood ; 
especially as the question was not treated in the Acts,’ which 
were drawn up for the useful purpose of preventing deceit on 
the part of evil men, and of preserving a record to assist the 
memory of good men. If, however, any man shall be dis- 
posed by this mention of our brethren to introduce any ques- 
tion or doubt on the subject in question, and summon them 
before the Episcopal judgment, they will not be wanting to 
themselves, as occasion shall serve. Why need we here pur- 
sue the point, when not even the judges themselves, after the 
narrative of our brother bishop, were inclined to pronounce 
any definite sentence in consequence of it ? 
Cuap. 40. [xvir.] 

Since, then, Pelagius was present when these [decisive] 
passages of the Scriptures were discussed, and by his silence 
acknowledged having said that he entertained the same view 
of their meaning, how happens it, that, after reconsidering 
the apostle's testimony, as he had just done, and finding that 
he said: “I am not meet to be called an apostle, because 
I persecuted the Church of God; but by the grace of God I 
am what I am,”’ he did not perceive that it was improper 
for him to say, respecting the question of the abundance of 
the graces and gifts which the said apostle received, that he 
had shown himself * worthy to receive them," when the 
apostle himself not only confessed, but added a reason to 
prove, that he was wnworthy of them—and by this very fact 
set forth grace as grace indeed? If he could not for some 
reason or other consider or recollect the narrative of his holi- 
ness the bishop John, which he had heard some time before, 


l[Augustine here refers to the Acts of the conference at Jerusalem before 
its bishop John, which sat previous to the Council of Diospolis. See above, 
37 (xiv.).] 

? ] Cor. xv. 9, 10. 





"T 
CHAP. XLL] UNCERTAINTY IN PELAGIUS' DECLARATIONS. 405 





he might surely show some deference to his own very recent 
answer at the synod, and remember how he anathematized, 
but a short time since, the opinions which had been alleged 
against him out of Ccelestius. Now among these it was 
objected to him that Ccelestius had said: “That the grace of 
God is bestowed according to our merits.” If, then, Pelagius 
was sincere in his condemnation of. this doctrine by his ana- 
thema, why does he say that all those graces were conferred 
on the apostle because he deserved them? Is the phrase 
“worthy to receive” of different meaning from the expression 
“to receive according to merit”? Can he by any disputa- 
tious subtlety show that a man is worthy who has no merit ? 
But neither Ccelestius, nor any other, whose opinions he 
anathematized at one swoop, has any intention to allow him 
to throw clouds over the phrase, and to conceal himself behind 
them. He presses home the matter, and plainly says: “ Grace 
has been actually placed in my own will, according as I have 
been either worthy or unworthy of it.” If, then, a statement, 
wherein it is declared that “God’s grace is given in propor- 
tion to our deserts, to such as are worthy,"! was rightly and 
truly condemned by Pelagius, how could his heart permit him 
to think, or his mouth to utter, such a sentence as this: “God 
gives to the person who has proved himself worthy to receive 
them, all graces?"? Who that carefully considers all this 
can help feeling some anxiety about his answer or defence ? 


Cuap. 41.—Augustine indulgently shows that the judges acted incautiously in 
their official conduct of the case of Pelagius. 


Why, then (some one will say), did the judges approve of 
this? I confess that I hardly even now understand why 
they did. It is, however, not to be wondered at, if some 
brief word or phrase too easily escaped their attention and 
ear; or if, because they thought it capable of being somehow 
interpreted in a correct sense, from seeming to have from the 
accused himself such clear confessions of truth on the subject, 
they decided it to be hardly worth while to excite a discus- 
sion about a word. The same feeling might have occurred to 
ourselves also, if we had sat with them at the trial For if, 
instead of the term worthy, the word predestinated had been 

! [See above, 30 (xiv.).] ? [See above, 32.] 


406 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. | [CHAP. XLII. 





used, or some such word, my mind would certainly not have 
entertained any doubt, much less have been disquieted by it; 
and yet if it were asserted, that he who is justified by the 
election of grace is called worthy, through no antecedent 
merits of good indeed, but by [God’s] destination, just as he 
is called “elect,” it would be really difficult to determine 
whether he might be so designated at all, or at least with 
very little offence to an intelligent view of the subject. 

As for myself, indeed, I might readily pass on from the 
discussion on this word, were it not that the treatise which 
called forth my reply, and in which he says that God’s grace 
is nothing else whatever than our own nature with its free- 
will gratuitously created, made me suspicious and anxious 
about the actual meaning of Pelagius— whether he had pro- 
cured the introduction of the term into the argument without 
any accurate intention as to its sense, or else as a carefully 
drawn dogmatic expression. [But to proceed] the last re- 
maining statements had such an effect on the judges, that 
they deemed them worthy of condemnation, without waiting 
for Pelagius’ answer. | 


Cuap. 42. [xvur. ]--Other heads of Colestius! doctrine abjured by Pelagius. 


For it was objected that in the sixth chapter of Ccelestius’ 
work there was laid down this position: * Men cannot be 
called sons of God, unless they have entirely become free 
from all sin.” It follows from this statement, that not even 
the Apostle Paul is & child of God, since he said: * Not 
as though I had already attained, either were already 
perfect"? In the seventh chapter he makes this state- 
ment: “Forgetfulness and ignorance have no connection 
with sin, as they do not happen through the will, but occur 
of necessity ;" although David says: * Remember not the 
sins of my youth, nor my sins of ignorance;"? although too, 
in the law, sacrifices are offered for ignorance, as if for sin.* 
In his eleventh chapter he says: “Our will cannot be free, 
if it requires the help of God; inasmuch as every one in the 


1[We have preferred the reading gratis creatam to the obscure gratiam 
creaturam.) 


T*PNR1$. dil of ap >. ar 4 See Lev. iv. 


CHAP. XLIV.] PELAGIANISM CONDEMNED BY THE JUDGES. 407 





possession of his proper will has either something to do or 
to abstain from doing.” In the twelfth he says: “ Our victory 
comes not from God's help, but from our own free-will" And 
this is a conclusion which he was said to draw in the follow- 
ing terms: ^ The victory is ours, seeing that we took up arms 
of our own will and accord ; just as, on the other hand, being 
conquered is our own, since it was of our own will and 
accord that we neglected to arm ourselves.” And, after 
quoting the phrase of-the Apostle Peter, * partakers of the 
divine nature,'! he is said to have made out of it this argu- 
ment: * Now since our spirit or soul is unable to be without 
sin, therefore even God is subject to sin, since this part of 
Him, that is to say the spirit or soul, is exposed to sin.” In 
his thirteenth chapter he says: * That pardon is not given 
to penitents according to the grace and mercy of God, but 
according to their own merits and effort, since through re- 
pentance they have been worthy of mercy." 

Cuap. 43. [xix. ]-- 7e answer of the monk Pelagius and his profession 

of faith. uM 

After all these sentences were read out, the synod said: 
“ What says the monk Pelagius to all these heads of opinion 
which have been read in his presence? For this holy synod 
condemns the whole, as does also God's Holy Catholie Church." 
Pelagius answered: “I say again, that these opinions, even 
according to their own showing, are not mine; nor for them, 
as I have already said, am I to be held responsible. The 
opinions which I have confessed to be my own, I maintain 
are sound and correct ; those, however, which I have said are 
not my own, I reject according to the judgment of this holy 
synod, pronouncing anathema on every man who opposes and 
‘gainsays the doctrines of the Holy Catholic Church. For I 
believe in the Trinity of the One Divine substance, and I 
hold all things in accordance with the teaching of the Holy 
Catholic Church. If indeed any man entertains opinions 
different from that doctrine, let him be anathema.” 

Cuap. 44. [xx.}-—-The acquittal of Pelagius. — 

The synod -said: “Now since we have received satisfac- 

tion on the points which have come before us touching the 
12 Pet. i. 4. 


408 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XLV. 





monk Pelagius, who has been present; since, too, he gives his 
consent to the doctrines of godliness, and anathematizes every- 
thing that is contrary to the Church's faith, we pronounce 
him to belong to the communion of the Catholie Church." 


Cuap. 45. [xx1.]—Pelagius’ acquittal becomes suspected. 


If these proceedings were conducted in such a manner as 
to induce Pelagius’ friends to rejoice in his exculpation by 
them, we, on our part, undoubtedly desire and pray for his 
salvation in Christ; and he certainly took much pains to 
prove that we were well affected towards him, by going so 
far as to produce even our private letters to him, and read- 
ing them at the trial As regards his acquittal, however, 
. which is rather believed than clearly shown to be deserved, 
we ought not to be ina hurry to exult in it. When I say 
this, indeed, I do not charge the judges either with negli- 
gence or connivance, or with consciously holding unsound 
doctrine—which they most certainly would be the very last 
to entertain. But although by their sentence Pelagius is 
held by those who are on terms of fullest and closest inti- 
macy with him to have been acquitted, as he deserved to be, 
with the approval and even commendation of his judges, he 
certainly does not appear to me to have been cleared of the 
charges brought against him. They conducted his trial as 
of one whom they knew nothing of, especially in the absence 
of those who had prepared the indictment against him, and 
were quite unable to examine him with diligence and care; 
but, in spite of this inability, they completely quashed the 
heresy itself, as even the defenders of his perverseness must 
allow, if they only follow the judgment through its particulars. 
As for those persons, however, who well know what Pelagius 
has been in the habit of teaching, or who have had to oppose 
his contentious efforts, or those who, to their joy, have escaped 
from his erroneous doctrine, how can they possibly help suspect- 
ing him, when they read the affected confession, wherein he 
acknowledges past errors, but so expressed as if he had never 
entertained any other opinion than those which he stated in 
his replies to the satisfaction of the judges ? 


CHAP. XLVII.] AUGUSTINE AND PELAGIUS. 409 





Cnar. 46. [xx11.]—How Pelagius became known to Augustine ; Colestius 
condemned at Carthage. 


Now, that I may especially refer to my own relation to 
him, I first became acquainted with Pelagius’ name at a 
distance, and when he was living at Rome ; it was mentioned 
with much commendation and respect. Afterwards reports 
began to reach us, that he was a frequent disputant against 
the grace of God. This caused me much pain, for I could 
not refuse to believe the statements of my informants; but 
yet I was desirous of ascertaining information on the matter 
either from himself or from some treatise of his, that, in case 
I should have to discuss the question with him, it should be 
on grounds which he could not disown. On his arrival, 
however, in Africa, he was in my absence kindly received on 
our coast of Hippo, where, as I found from our brethren, 
nothing whatever of his unfavourable character had been 
heard of him; he left, however, earlier than was expected. 
On a subsequent occasion, indeed, I caught a glimpse of him, 
once or twice, to the best of my recollection, when I was 
very much occupied in preparing for a conference which we 
were to hold with the heretical Donatists ; but he hastened 
away across the sea. Meanwhile the doctrines connected 
with his name were warmly maintained, and passed from 
mouth to mouth, among his reputed followers—to such an 
extent that Ccelestius found his way before an ecclesiastical 
tribunal, and developed opinions well suited to his perverse 
character. We thought it would be a better way of proceed- 
ing against them, if, without mentioning any names of in- 
dividuals, the errors themselves were met and refuted ; that 
the [misguided] persons might thus be brought to a right 
mind by the fear of a condemnation from the Church rather 
than by the punishment ‘actually administered on them. 
And so both by books and by popular discussions we ceased 
not to oppose the evil doctrines in question. 

Cuap. 47. [xxi ]— Pelagius! book, which was sent by Timasius and Jacobus 


to Augustine, was answered by the latter in his work ** On Nature and 
Grace.” 


But when there was actually placed in my hands, by those 
faithful servants of God and honourable men, Timasius and 


410 |. ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. XLVII. 





Jacobus, the treatise in which Pelagius dealt with the ques- 
tion of God's grace, it became very evident to me—too evident, 
indeed, to admit of any further doubt—how hostile to salva- 
tion by Christ was his poisonous perversion of the truth. 
He treated the subject in the shape of an objection started, 
as if by an opponent, in his own terms against himself; for 
he was already suffering a good deal of obloquy from his 
opinions on the question, which he now appeared to solve 
for himself in no other way than by simply describing the 
grace of God as nature created [by God] with a free-will, 
occasionally combining therewith either the help of the law, 
or even the remission of sins; although these additional 
admissions were not plainly made, but only sparingly sug- 
gested by him. And yet, even under these circumstances, I 
refrained from inserting Pelagius name in my work, wherein 
I refuted this book of his; for I still thought that I should 
render a prompter assistance to the truth if I continued to 
preserve a friendly relation to him, and so to spare his 
personal feelings, while at the same time I showed no mercy, 
as I was bound not to show it, to the productions of his pen. 
Hence, I must say, I now feel some annoyance, that in this 
tria he somewhere said: “I anathematize those who hold 
these opinions, or have at any time held them." He might 
have been contented with saying, “ Those who hold these 
opinions, which we should have regarded in the light of a 
self-censure ; but when he went on to say, “ Or have at any 
time held them,’ [Y cannot help asking], in the first place, how 
he could dare to condemn so unjustly those harmless persons 
who no longer held the errors, which they had learnt either 
from others, or actually from himself? And, in the second 
place, [I must inquire] who among all those persons that 
were aware of the fact of his not only having held the 
opinions in question, but of his having taught them, could 
help suspecting, and not unreasonably, that he must have 
acted insincerely in condemning those who now held those 
opinions, seeing that he did not hesitate to condemn in the 
same strain and at the same moment those also who had at 
any time previously held them, when they would be sure to 
remember that they had no less a person than himself as 





CHAP.XLVIIL] AUGUSTINE'S REFUTATION OF PELAGIANISM. 411 





their instructor in these errors? There are, for instance, 
such persons as Timasius and Jacobus, to say nothing of any 
others. How can he with unblushing face look at them, his 
dear friends (who have never relinquished their love of him) 
and his former disciples? These are the persons to whom 
I addressed the work in which I replied to the statements 
of [Pelagius] book. I think I ought not to pass over in 
silence the style and tone which they observed towards me 
in their correspondence, and I have here added a letter of 
theirs as a sample. 
Cuap. 48. [xxiv. ]—4A letter written by Timasius and Jacobus to Augustine 
on receiving his treatise ** On Nature and Grace.” 
“To his lordship, the truly blessed and deservedly venerable 
father, Bishop Augustine, Timasius and Jacobus send greet- 
ing in the Lord. We have been so greatly refreshed and 
strengthened by the grace of God, which your word has 
ministered to us, my lord, our truly blessed and justly venerated 
father, that we may with the utmost sincerity and propriety 
say, ‘He sent His word and healed them! We have found, 
indeed, that your holiness has so thoroughly sifted the contents 
of his poor worthless book as to astonish us with the answers 
with which even the slightest points of his error .have been 
confronted, whether it be on matters which every Christian 
ought to rebut, loathe, and avoid, or on those in which he is 
not with sufficient certainty found to have erred,—although 
even in these he has, with incredible subtlety, suggested his 
belief that God's grace should be kept out of sight? There 
is, however, one consideration which affects us under so great 
a benefit, that this most illustrious gift of the grace of God 
has, however slowly, so fully shone out upon us. If, indeed, 
it has happened that some are removed from the influence of 
this clearest light of truth, whose blind condition required its 
illumination, yet even to them, we doubt not, the same grace 
will find its steady way, however late, by the merciful favour 
of that God ‘who will have all men to be saved and to come 
unto the knowledge of the truth”? As for ourselves, indeed, 
thanks to that loving spirit which is in you, we have, in con- 
sequence of your instruction, some time since thrown off our 


1 Ps, cvii. 20. 2 Supprimendam. * 1 Tim. ii. 4. 
pp 


412 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. L. 





subjection to his errors; but we still have even now cause 
for continued gratitude in the fact that, as we have been 
informed, the false opinions which we formerly believed are 
now becoming apparent to others—a way of escape opening 
out to them in the extremely precious discourse of your 
holiness" Then, in another hand, [comes this conclusion]: 
* May the mercy of our God keep your blessedness in safety, 
and mindful of us, for His eternal glory."! 


Cuap. 49. [xxv.] 


If now even that man? were to confess that he had once 
been implicated in this error as a person possessed, but that 
he now anathematized all that held these opinions, whoever 
should withhold his congratulation from him, now that he was 
in possession of the way of truth, would surely surrender all 
the instincts of charity. As the case, however, now stands, 
he has not only not acknowledged his liberation from his 
. pestilential error; but, as if that were a small thing, he 
has gone on to anathematize men who have reached that 
freedom, who love him so well that they would fain desire 
his own emancipation. Amongst these are those very men 
who have expressed their good-will towards him in the [above- 
mentioned] letter, which they forwarded to me. For he it was 
whom they had chiefly in view when they said how much 
they were affected at the fact of my having at last written 
that work. “If, indeed, it has happened," they say, “ that 
some are removed from the influence of this clearest light of 
truth, whose blind condition required its illumination, yet 
even to them," they go on to remark, * we doubt not, the 
self-same grace will find its way, by the merciful favour of 
God.” Any name, or names, even they too thought it desir- 
able as yet to suppress, in order that, if friendship still lived 
on, the error of the friends might the more surely die. 

Cuap. 50.— Pelagius has no good reason to be annoyed if his name be at last 


used in the controversy, and he be expressly refuted ; concerning the Epistles 
which were written to him by the Bishops. 


But now if Pelagius thinks of God, if he is not ungrateful 
for His mercy in having brought him before this tribunal of 
1 [See Augustine's Epist. 168.] ? Pelagius. 


CHAP. LI.] AUGUSTINES CONSIDERATION TOWARDS PELAGIUS. 413 





the bishops, that thus he might be saved from the hardihood 
of afterwards defending these anathematized opinions, and be 
at once led to acknowledge them as deserving of abhorrence 
and rejection, he will be more thankful to us for a letter in 
which, by mentioning his name, we shall open the wound in 
order to cure it, than for one in which we were afraid to cause 
him pain, and, in fact, only produced irritation,—a result which 
causes us regret. Should he, however, feel angry with us, let 
him reflect how unfair such anger is; and, in order to subdue 
it, let him ask God to give him that grace which, in this trial, 
he has confessed to be necessary for each one of our actions, 
that so by His assistance he may gain a real vietory. For of 
what use to him are all those great laudations contained in the 
letters of the bishops, which he thought fit to be mentioned, 
and even to be read and quoted in his favour,—as if all those 
persons who heard his strong and, to some extent, earnest ex- 
hortations to goodness of life could not have easily discovered 
how perverse were the opinions which he was entertaining ? 


Cuap. 51. [xxv1. ] 


For my own part, indeed, in the letter which he produced, 
I not only abstained from all praises of him, but I even ex- 
horted him, with as much earnestness as I could, short of 
actually mooting the question, to cultivate right views about 
the grace of God. In my salutation I called him Dominus) — 
a title which, in our epistolary style, we usually apply even 
to some persons who are not Christians,—and this without 
untruth, inasmuch as we do, in a certain sense, owe to all 
such persons a service, which is yet freedom, to help them in 
obtaining the salvation which is in Christ. I added the 
epithet Dzlectissimus [most beloved]; and as I now call him 
by this term, so shall I continue to do so, even if he be angry 
with me; because, if I ceased to retain my love towards him, 
because of his feeling the anger, I should only injure myself 
rather than him. JI, moreover, styled him Desideratissimus 
[most longed-for], because I greatly longed to have a con- 
versation with him in person; for I had already heard that 


1 [This term corresponds somewhat to our Sir; but Augustine here refers to 
its more expressive meaning of Master, or Lord. ] 


414 : ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [ CHAP. LII. 





he was endeavouring publicly to oppose the [doctrine of] grace, 
whereby we are justified, whenever any mention was made of 
it. The brief contents of the letter itself indeed show all this; 
for, after thanking him for the pleasure he gave me by the 
information of his own health and that of his friends (whose 
bodily health we are bound of course to wish for, however 
much we may desire their amendment in other respects), I 
at once expressed the hope that the Lord would recompense 
him with such blessings as do not appertain to physical wel- 
fare, but which he used to think, and probably still thinks, 
consist solely in the freedom and power he possesses over 
his will,—at the same time, and for this reason, wishing him 
eternal life. Then again, remembering the many good and 
kind wishes he had expressed for me in his letter, which I 
was answering, I went on to beg of him, too, that he would 
pray for me, that the Lord would indeed make me such a 
man as he believed me to be already; that so I might gently 
remind him, against the opinion he was himself entertaining, 
that the very righteousness which he had thought worthy to 
be praised in me was “not of him that willeth, nor of him 
that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.”* This is 
the substance of that short letter of mine, and such was my 
purpose when I dictated it. This is a copy of it: 


CHAP. 52. [XXVII. AND XXVIII. ] 


“To my very dear sir, and most longed-for brother Pelagius, 
Augustine sends greeting in the Lord. I thank you very much 
for the pleasure you have kindly afforded me by your letter, 
and for informing me of your good health. May the Lord 
requite you with blessings, and may you ever enjoy them, and 
live with Him for evermore in eternity, my very dear sir and 
most longed-for brother. For my own part, indeed, although 
I do not admit your high. encomiums of me, which your kind 
letter? conveys, I yet cannot be insensible of the benevolent 
view you entertain towards my poor deserts; at the same time 
requesting you to pray for me, that the Lord would make me 


1 Rom. ix. 16. 
? [Tuc Benignitatis Epistola is more than ‘‘ your kind letter." ** Benignitas” 
is a complimentary abstract title addressed to the correspondent. ] 








CHAP. LIII] PELAGIUS HERETICAL, AFTER ALL. 415 





such a man as you suppose me to be already." Then, in an- 
other hand, it follows: “ Be mindful of us; may you be safe, 
and find favour with the Lord, my very dear sir and most 
beloved brother." 
: Cnr. 53. [xxix.] : 

As to that which I placed in the postscript,—that he might 
« find. favour with the Lord,’—I intimated that this lay rather 
in His grace than in man’s sole will; for I did not make it 
the subject either of exhortation, or of precept, or of instruc- 
tion, but simply of my wish. But just in the same way as 
I should, if I had fallen to exhorting or enjoining, or even to 
instructing him, simply have shown that all this appertained 
indeed to the freedom of man’s will, without, however, dero- 
gating from the grace of God; s0, in like manner, when I 
expressed the matter in the way of a wish, I asserted no 
doubt the grace of God, but at the same time I did not 
quench the liberty of the human will. Wherefore, then, did 
he produce this letter at the trial ? If he had only from the 
beginning entertained views in accordance with it, very likely 
he would not haye been at all summoned before the bishops 
by the brethren, who, with all their kindness of disposition, 
could yet not help being offended with his perverse conten- 
tiousness. Now, however, as I have given on my part an 
account of this letter of mine, so would they, whose epistles 
he quoted, explain theirs also, if 1t were necessary —they 
would tell us either what they thought, or what they were 
ignorant of, or with what purpose they wrote to him. Pelagius, 
therefore, may boast to his heart’s content of the friendship of 


holy men, he may read their letters. recounting his praises, he 


may produce whatever synodal acts he pleases to attest his 
own aequittal,—there still stands against him the fact, proved 
by the testimony of competent witnesses, that he has inserted 
in his books statements which are opposed to that grace of 
God whereby we are called and justified ; and unless he shall, 
after true confession, anathematize these statements, and then 
co on to contradict them both in his writings and discussions, 
he will certainly seem to all those who have a fuller know- 
ledge of him to have laboured in vain in his attempt to set 
himself right. 


416 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. LIV. 





Cn». 54. [xxx. ]—On the letter of Pelagius, in which he boasts that his 
errors had been approved by fourteen Bishops. 


For I will no longer conceal my opinion of the transactions 
which took place after this trial, and which rather augment 
the suspicion against him. A certain epistle found its way 
into our hands, which was ascribed to Pelagius himself, writing 
to a friend of his, a presbyter, who had kindly admonished him 
(as appears from the forenamed epistle), to prevent any one’s 
separating himself from the body of the Church on his account. 
Among the other contents of this document, which it would 
be both tedious and unnecessary to quote here, Pelagius says: 
“ By the sentence of fourteen bishops our statement was re- 
ceived with approbation, in which we affirmed that ‘a man is 
able to live without sin, and easily ta keep the commandments 
of God, if he pleases.’ This sentence [of the bishops],” says 
he, “has filled the mouths of the gainsayers with confusion, 
and has separated asunder the entire set which was conspiring 
together for evil.” Whether, indeed, this epistle was really 
written by Pelagius, or was composed by somebody in his 
name, none can fail to discern, after the manner in which the 
erroneous doctrine claims to have achieved a victory, even in 
the judicial proceedings where it was refuted and condemned. 
Now, he has adduced the words we have just quoted accord- 
ing to the form in which they occur in his book of Capitula 
[4 Chapters "], as it is called, not in the shape in which they 
were objected to him at his trial and even repeated by him 
in his answer. For even his accusers, through some unac- 
countable inaccuracy, left out a word in their indictment, 
concerning which there is no small controversy. They made 
him say, that “a man is able to live without sin, if he likes; 
and, if he likes, to keep the commandments of God.” There 
is nothing said here about this being “ easily” done. After- 
wards, when he gave his answer, he spake thus: * We said, 
that a man is able to live without sin, and to keep the com- 
mandments of God, if he pleases ;" he did not then say, “ easily 
keep,” but only “keep.” So in another passage, amongst the 
statements about which Hilary consulted me, and I gave him 
my views, it was objected to Pelagius that he had said, “ A 
man is able, if he likes, to live without sin ;” when he admitted 


CHAP. LY.] PELAGIAN BOASTING. 417 





himself, in reply, that he had already said, * A man is able to 
live without sin.” Now, on this occasion, we do not find on 
the part either of those who brought the objection or of him 
who rebutted it, that the word “ easily” was used at all. Then, 
again, in the narrative of the holy Bishop John, which we have 
partly quoted above,’ he says, “ When they were importunate 
and exclaimed, ‘ He is a heretic;’ he said, ‘ Still it is true that 
a man is able, if he only will, to live without sin;’ and then, 
when we questioned him on this point, he answered, ‘I did 
not say that man’s nature has received the power of being 
impeccable,—but I said, whosoever is willing, in the pursuit 
of his own salvation, to labour and struggle to abstain from 
sinning, and to walk in the commandments of God, receives 
the possibility of doing so from God ;’ then, whilst some were 
whispering, and remarking on the statement of Pelagius, that 
‘without God’s grace man was able to attain perfection, I 
then censured the statement” [continued the bishop], “ and 
reminded them, besides, that even the Apostle Paul, after so 
many labours,—not, indeed, in his own strength, but by the. 
grace of God,—said, ‘I laboured more abundantly than they 
all; yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me,” and 
so on, as I have Aner mentioned.” 


CuHAp. 55. 


What, then, is the meaning of those vaunting words of 
theirs in this epistle, wherein they boast of having induced the 
fourteen bishops who sat in that trial to believe not merely 
that a man is able, but that He is “easly” able to abstain 
from sinning, according to the position which is laid down in 
the Capitula of this same Pelagius,—when, in the draft of 
the proceedings, notwithstanding the frequent repetition of the 
general charge and full consideration bestowed on it, there is 
nowhere found the occurrence of this [offensive word]? How, 
indeed, can this word fail to contradict the very defence and 
answer which Pelagius made ; since the Bishop John asserted 
that Pelagius put in this answer in his presence, that “he 
wished it to be understood that the man who willingly 
laboured and strove to secure his salvation was able to avoid 

! In. 37. [x1v.] 2 1 Cor. xv. 10. 
4 2D 


. 418 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. LV. 





?? 


sin, while Pelagius himself, when engaged in a formal 
inquiry and conducting his defence,’ distinctly said, that “it 
was by his own effort and the grace of God that a man is 
able to live without sin?” Now, is a thing easily done when 
labour and effort are required to effect it? For I suppose 
that every man would agree with us in the opinion, that 
wherever there is effort there cannot be an easy achievement 
of a result. And yet this precious epistle, buoyed up by the 
lightness of its inflated and turgid contents, has outrun in 
speed the record of the proceedings, which was drawn more 
tardily, and has first fallen into men’s hands; so it is asserted 
that fourteen bishops in the East have determined, not only 
.*that a man is able to live without sin, and to keep God's 
commandments,” but “easily able.” Nor is God's assistance 
once named: it is merely said, “ If he likes;" so that, of course, 
as nothing is affirmed of the divine grace, for which the 
earnest fight was made, it remains that the only thing one 
reads of 4 this epistle is the unhappy and self-deceiving— 
because represented as victorious—power of human pride. As 
if the Bishop John, indeed, had not expressly declared that 
he censured this statement, and that, by the help of three 
inspired texts of Scripture? he had, as if by thunderbolts, 
struck to the ground the gigantic mountains of such pre- 
sumption which they had piled up against the still over- 
towering heights of heavenly grace; or as if again those other 
bishops who were John's assessors could have borne with 
Pelagius, either in mind or even in ear, when he pronounced 
these words: * We said that a man is able to live without 
sin and to keep the commandments of God, if he likes," 
unless he had gone on at once to say: “ But the ability to do 
this God has given to him" (for they were quite unaware 
that he was speaking of nature, and not of that grace which 
they had learnt from the doctrine of the apostle); and had 
afterwards added this qualification: * We never said, how- 
ever, that any man could be found, who at no time whatever 
from his infancy to his old age committed sin, but that 

1 [At the Synod of Diospolis. The proceedings before John, bishop of 


Jerusalem, were not duly registered. See Sud. 39. ] 
2 [See above, 37.] 








CHAP. LVL] — —ITS GROUNDLESSNESS SHOWN. 419 





if any person were converted from his sins, he could by his 
own exertion and the grace of God live without sin.” Now, 
by the very fact that in their sentence they used these words, 
he has answered correctly, *that a man can live without 
sin when he has the assistance and grace of God;" what. 
else did they fear than that, if he denied this, he would be 
doing a manifest wrong not to man’s inability, but to God's 
grace? It has indeed not been defined at what particular 
time a man becomes sinless; it has only been judicially 
settled, that this result can only be reached by the assisting 
grace of God; it has not, I say, been defined whether a man, 
whilst he is in this flesh which lusts against the Spirit, ever 
has been, or now is, or ever can be, by his present use of 
reason and free-will, either in the full society of man or in 
monastic solitude, in such a state as to be beyond the necessity 
of offering up the prayer, not in behalf of others, but for him- 
self personally: “Forgive us our debts;"! or whether this 
gift [of a sinless condition] shall be consummated at the 
time when * we shall be like Him, when we shall see Him as 
He is;"? when it shall be said, not by [Christians] militant : 
* I see another law in my members, warring against the law 
of my mind,"? but by them when triumphant: * O death, 
where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory ?"* Now, 
this is perhaps hardly a question which ought to be discussed 
between Catholies and hereties, but only among Catholics 
with a view to a peaceful settlement? 


Cup. 56. [xxx1.] 

How, then, can it be believed that Pelagius (if indeed this 
epistle is his) could have been sincere, when he acknowledged 
the grace of-God, which is not nature with its free-will, nor 
the knowledge of the law, nor simply the forgiveness of sins, 
but a something which is necessary to each of our actions, 
and when he anathematized everybody who entertained the 
contrary opinion,—seeing that in his epistle he set forth the 


1 Matt. vi. 12. ? | John ii. 2. 5 Rom. vii. 23. * 1 Cor xv. 55. 

5 [This point, however, was definitely settled a year or two afterwards, at a 
council held in Carthage. (See its Canons 6-8.) See also, above, the 
Preface to the treatise On the Perfection of Man’s Righteousness. ] 


420 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. | [CHAP.LVII. 





ease Wherewith a man could avoid sinning (concerning which 
no question had arisen at this trial), just as if the judges had 
come to an agreement to receive even this word, and said 
nothing about the grace of God, by the acknowledgment and 
subsequent admission of which [at the trial] he escaped the 
penalty of condemnation by the Church ? 


Cuap. 57. [xxxrr. ]-2Zraudulent. practices pursued by Pelagius in his report of 
the proceedings in Palestine, in the paper wherein he defended himself to 
Augustine. 


There is yet another point which I must not pass over 
in silence. In a paper containing his defence which he 
sent to me-by a friend of ours, one Charus, a citizen of 
Hippo, but a deacon in the Eastern Church, he has made a 
statement which is different from what is contained in the 
Acts of the Bishops. Now, these formal acts, as regards their 
contents, are of a far higher and firmer tone, and altogether 
more straightforward in defending the Catholic verity in 
opposition to this heretical pestilence. Now, when I read 
this paper of his, previous to receiving a copy of the Acts, I 
was not aware that he had put down therein those very 
words which he had used at the trial, when he was present 
for himself. There are a few in respect of which there is not 
much discrepancy, and which do not occasion me much 
anxiety. [xxxur| But I could not help feeling annoy- 
ance at the unmistakeable signs he gave of having kept 
back a defence of sundry sentences of Coelestius, which he 
had clearly enough anathematized in the Acts. Now, some 
of these he disavowed for himself, simply remarking, that 
“he was not in any way responsible for them." In his 
paper, however, he refused to anathematize these same 
opinions, which are to this effect: * That Adam was created 
mortal, and that he must have died whether he had sinned 
or not. That Adam's sin injured only himself, and not 
the human race. That the law, no less than the gospel, 
leads us to the kingdom [of heaven]. That new-born in- 
fants are in the same condition as Adam was before he fell. 
That, on the one hand, the entire human race does not die 
owing to Adam's death and transgression; nor, on the 
other hand, does the whole human race rise again through 





CHAP. LVIII.] DUPLICITY OF PELAGIUS. 421 





the resurrection of Christ. That infants, even if they die un- 
baptized, have eternallife. That rich men, even if they are 
baptized, unless they renounce and give up all, have, whatever 
good they may seem to have done, nothing of it reckoned to 
them; neither shall they possess the kingdom of heaven. Now, 
in his paper, the answer which he gives to all this is: “These 
statements have not been all made by me, even on their own 
showing, nor do I hold myself responsible for them." In the 
Acts of the Bishops, however, he expressed himself as follows 
on these points: “The other points were never. advanced 
by me, as even their testimony goes to show, to whom, how- 
ever, I do not feel that I am at all answerable for them. But » 
yet, for the satisfaction of the holy synod, I anathematize those 
who either now hold, or have ever held, these opinions." 
Now, why did he not express himself thus in his paper also ? 
It would not, I suppose, have cost much ink, or writing, or 
delay; nor have occupied much of the paper itself, i he 
had done this. Who, however, can help believing that there 
is a contrivance in all this, for the purpose of passing off 
this paper in all directions as an abridgment of the Episcopal 
Acts? In consequence of which, men might think that 
there had arisen an interference with his right still to main- 
tain any of these opinions which he pleased,—on the ground 
that they had been simply laid to his charge, but had not 
received his approbation, although, at the same time, they 
had not been by him anathematized and condemned. 


Cuar. 58. 


He has, moreover, in this same paper, huddled together 
many of the points which were objected against him out 
of the Capitula, or heads, of Coelestius book; nor has he 
kept distinct, at the intervals which separate them in the 
Acts, the two answers in which he anathematized these very 
heads [before the bishops; ] but he has substituted one general 
reply for them all This, I should have supposed, had been 
done for the sake of brevity, had I not perceived that he had 
a very special object in the arrangement which disturbs us. 
For thus has he closed this answer: “I say again, that these 
opinions, even according to their own showing, are not mine; 


422 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. —[CHAP. LVIII. 





nor, as I have already said, am I to be held responsible for 
them. The opinions which I have confessed to be my own, 
I maintain are sound and correct; those, however, which I 
have said are not my own, I reject according to the judgment 
of this holy synod, pronouncing anathema on every man that 
opposes and gainsays the doctrines of the holy Catholic 
Church; and likewise on those who by broaching false 
opinions have excited odium against us.” This last paragraph 
the Acts do not contain; it has, however, no bearing on the 
matter which causes us anxiety. Dy all means let them have 
his anathema who have brought him into disrepute by their 
invention of false doctrine. But, when first I read, “Those 
opinions which I have said are not thy own, I reject in aecord- 
ance with the judgment of this holy synod," being ignorant 
that any judgment had been arrived at on the point by the 
Church, since there is here nothing said about it (and I had 
not then read the Acts, or formal proceedings before the 
bishops), I really thought that nothing else was meant than 
that he promised that he would entertain the same view about 
the Capitula of Coelestius as the Church, which had not yet 
determined the question, might some day decide respecting 
them; and that he was ready to reject the opinions which 
the Chureh had not yet indeed rejected, but might one day 
have occasion to reject; and that this, too, was the purport of 
what he further said: “ Pronouncing anathema on every man 
that opposes and gainsays the doctrines of the holy Catholic 
Church" But in fact, as the Acts testify, a judgment of the 
Church had already been pronounced on these subjects by the 
fourteen bishops; and it was in accordance with this judgment 
that he professed to reject all these opinions, and to pronounce 
his anathema against those persons who, by reason of the said 
opinions, were contravening the judgment, which had already, 
as the proceedings show, been actually settled. For already 
had the judges asked: * What says the monk Pelagius to all 
these heads of opinion which have been read in his presence ? 
For this holy synod condemns them, as does also God's holy 
Catholic Church.” Now, they who know nothing of all this, 
and only read this paper of his, are led to suppose that some 
one or other of these opinions may lawfully be maintained, 





CHAP. LIX.] PELAGIANISM, IF NOT PELAGIUS, CONDEMNED, 423 





as if they had not been determined to be contrary to Catholic 
doctrine, and as if Pelagius had declared himself to be ready 
to hold the same sentiments concerning them as the Church, 
which had not as yet determined, but might have to deter- 
mine. He has not, in short, expressed himself in this paper, 
to which we have so often referred, straightforwardly enough 
for us to discover the fact, of which we find a voucher in the 
Acts, that all those dogmatic assertions which were being 
stealthily overrun by this same heresy, and were in turn 
inspiring it with the vigour of a contentious audacity, had 
really been condemned by fourteen bishops presiding in an 
ecclesiastical synod. Now, if he was afraid that this fact 
would become known, as is the case, he has more reason for 
self-correction than for resentment at the vigilance with 
which we are watching the controversy to the best of our 
ability, however late. If, however, it is untrue that he had 
any such fears, and we are only indulging in a suspicion 
which is natural to man, let him forgive us; but, at the same 
time, let him continue to oppose and resist the opinions which 
were rejected by him with anathemas in the proceedings 
before the bishops, when he was on his defence; for if he 
now shows any leniency to them, he would run the risk of 
seeming not only to have believed these opinions formerly, 
but to be cherishing them still. 


Cuap. 59. [xxx1v.]—Although Pelagius was acquitted, his heresy was 
condemned. 


. Now, with respect to this treatise of mine, which perhaps 
is not unreasonably lengthy, considering the importance and 
extent of its subject, I have wished to inscribe it to your 
Reverence, in order that, if it be not displeasing to your mind, 
it may become known to such persons as I have thought to 
stand in need of it under the recommendation of your 
authority, which carries so much more weight than our own 
poor industry. [With such a sanction, I trust that my en- 
deavour will avail] to crush the vain and contentious thoughts 


of those persons who suppose that, because Pelagius was 


acquitted, those Eastern bishops who pronounced the judg- 
ment approved of those dogmas which are beginning to shed 
very pernicious influences against the Christian faith, and that 


424 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. [CHAP. LX. 





grace of God whereby we are called and justified. These the 
Christian verity never ceases to condemn, as indeed it con- 
demned them even by the authoritative sentence of the four- 
teen bishops; nor would it, on the occasion in question, have 
hesitated to condemn Pelagius too, unless he had anathematized 
the heretical opinions with which he was charged. But now, 
while we render to this man the respect of brotherly affection 
(and we have all along expressed with all sincerity our 
anxiety for him and interest in him), let us observe, with as 
much brevity as is consistent with accuracy of observation, 
that, notwithstanding the undoubted fact of his having been 
acquitted by a human verdict, the heresy itself has ever been 
held worthy of condemnation by divine judgment, and has 
actually been condemned by the sentence of these fourteen 
bishops of the Eastern Church. 
Cuar. 60. [xxxv.] 

This is the concluding clause of their judgment. The 
synod said: “ Now forasmuch as we have received satis- 
faction in these inquiries from the monk Pelagius, who 
has been present; since he yields assent to godly doc- 
trines and rejects and anathematizes those which are 
repugnant to the faith of the Church, we pronounce him still 
to belong to the communion of the Catholic Church." Now, 
there are two facts here contained with entire perspicuity in 
this brief statement of the holy bishops who judged him, con- 
cerning the monk Pelagius: one, that “he yields assent to 
godly doctrines;” the other, that “he rejects and anathe- 
matizes those which are repugnant to the faith of the Church.” 
On account of these two concessions, Pelagius was pronounced 
to be “in the communion of the Catholic Church." Let us, 
in pursuit of our inquiry, briefly recapitulate the entire facts, 
in order to discover what were the words he used which made 
those two points so clear, as far as men were able at the 
moment to form. a judgment as to what were manifest points. 
In regard, indeed, to the allegations which were made against: 
him, he is said to have rejected and anathematized, as contrary 
[to the faith of the Church,] all the statements which in his 
answer he denied having ever made. Let us, then, summarize 
the whole case so far as we can. | 





CHAP.LXIL] CCELESTIUS AND THE COUNCIL OF CARTHAGE. 425 





CHAP. 61.— The Pelagian heresy was raised by sundry persons who affected the 
monastic state. 


Since the Apostle Paul’s prediction must needs be accom- 
plished,—* There must be also heresies among you, that they 
which are approved may be made manifest among you,” '—after 
the promulgation of the older heresies, there has been lately 
introduced, not by bishops or presbyters, or indeed by any 
persons of the clerical orders, but by certain men who have 
affected the monastic life, a heresy which disputatiously resists, 
under colour of defending our free will, that grace of God 
which we have through our Lord Jesus Christ, and endeavours 
to overthrow the foundation of the Christian faith, of which 
it is written, “Since by one man came death, by one man 
came also the resurrection of the dead; for as in Adam all 
die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive ;”’? and 
thoroughly denies God’s help in our actions, by affirming that, 
“in order to avoid sin and to fulfil righteousness, human 
nature has sufficient power, which has been created with a 
free will; and that God’s grace lies in the fact that we have 
been so created as to be able [to accomplish so much] by the 
exercise of our free will; and in the further fact that God 
has given to us the assistance of His law and commandments, 
and also in that He forgives their past sins when men turn to 
Him.” In these things alone must God’s grace be regarded 
as consisting, not in the help He gives us for each of our 
actions; "seeing that a man can live without sin, and keep 
God's commandments easily if he likes." 

Cnr. 62.—Celestius condemned at Carthage by episcopal judgment. | Pelagius 


acquitted by bishops in Palestine, in consequence of his deceptive answers; but 
yet his heresy was condemned by them. 


After this heresy had deceived a great many persons, and 
was still disturbing the brethren whom it had failed to deceive, 
one Ccelestius, who entertained these sentiments, was brought 
up for trial before the Church of Carthage, and was con- 
demned by a formal sentence of the bishops there present.’ 


1 Y Cor. xi. 19. 3:1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. 

3 This trial was held at Carthage, before the Bishop Aurelius (to whom Augus- 
tine dedicated the present treatise), at the beginning of the year 402, as ee 
from the letter to Innocentius among Augustine’s Epistles, 175. 


426 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS. . [CHAP.LXII. 





A few years afterwards, Pelagius himself, who was said to 
have been this man's instructor, having been accused of 
holding his heresy, found his way also before an episcopal 
tribunal! The indictment was prepared against him by the 
Galliean bishops, Heros and Lazarus, who were, however, not 
present at the proceedings, being excused from attendance 
owing to the illness of one of them. After the charges were 
duly recited, and Pelagius had met them by his answers, the 
fourteen bishops of the province of Palestine were induced by 
the tenor of his vindication to pronounce him free from the 
taint of this heresy, although they did not hesitate, at the 
same time, to condemn the heresy itself. They approved 
indeed of his answer to one of the objections, that “a man is 
assisted by a knowledge of the law, towards not sinning; 
even as it is written, ‘He hath given them a law for a help; "? 
but yet they disapproved of this knowledge of the law being 
regarded as that grace of God concerning which the Scripture 
says: “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death ? 
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord"? Nor did 
Pelagius say absolutely: * All men are ruled by their own 
will,” as if God did not rule them; for he said, when ques- 
tioned on this point: * This I stated in the interest of the 
freedom of our will; God is its helper, whenever it makes 
choiee of God. Man, however, when sinning, is himself in 
fault, as being under the direction of his free will" They . 
approved, moreover, of his statement, that “in the day of judg- 
ment no leniency will be shown to the ungodly and the 
sinners, but they will be punished in everlasting fires ;" because 
in his defence he said, *that he had made such an assertion 
. in accordance with the gospel, in which it is written con- 
cerning sinners, ‘They shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment, but the righteous into life eternal'"* It must be 
observed here, that he had not said, a// sinners are reserved 
for eternal punishment, for then he would evidently have run 
counter to the apostle, who distinctly states that some of them 
will be saved, * yet so as by fire"? When also Pelagius said 
1 This happened in the year 415, in the month of December, at Diospolis. 


? Isa. viii. 20 (Septuagint). 3 Rom. vii. 24, 25. 
* Matt. xxv. 46. 5.1 Cor. iii. 15. 





CHAP. LXIII.] RECAPITULATORY NOTES. | 427 





that “the kingdom of heaven was promised even in the Old 
Testament,” they approved of the statement, on the ground 
that he supported himself by the testimony of the prophet 
Daniel, who thus wrote: “The saints of the Most High shall 
take the kingdom.”* They understood him in this statement 
of his to mean by the term “ Old Testament,’ not simply the 
covenant which was made on Mount Sinai, but the entire 
body of the canonical Scriptures which had been given pre- 
vious to the coming of the Lord. His allegation, however, 
that *a man is able to live without sin, if he likes," was not 
approved by the bishops in the sense which he had evidently 
meant it to bear in his book—as implying that this attain- 
ment of sinlessness was solely in a man’s power by reason of . 
his free-will (for it was contended that he must have meant 
no less than this by his saying: “if he likes "),—but only in 
the sense which he actually gave to the passage on the present 
occasion in his answer; in the very sense, indeed, in which 
the episcopal judges mentioned the subject in their own inter- 
locution with especial brevity and clearness, that a man is 
able to live without sin with the help and grace of God. But 
still it was left undetermined when the saints were to attain 
to this state of perfection,—whether in the body of this death, 
or when death shall be swallowed up in victory. 

Cur. 63.—The dogmas of Calestius were laid to the charge of Pelagius, 

as his master. 

Of the opinions which were objected against Pelagius, on 
the ground that they had been dogmatically affirmed, by oral 
teaching or in writing, by his disciple Ccelestius, he acknow- 
ledged some as entertained also by himself; but, in his vindi- 
cation, he said that he held them in a different sense from 
that which was alleged in the indictment. One of these 
opinions was thus stated: “Before the advent of Christ some 
men lived holy and righteous lives" Ccelestius, however, was 
stated to have said that “they lived sín/ess lives.” Again, it 
was objected that Coelestius declared “the Church to be with- 
out spot and wrinkle.” Pelagius, however, said in his reply, 
* that he had made such an assertion, but as meaning that the 
Church is by the laver of baptism cleansed from every spot 


* Dan. vi. 13. 


428 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.  [CHAP.LXIV. 





and wrinkle, and that in this purity the Lord would have her 
continue.” Respecting that statement of Coelestius: “That 
we do more than is commanded us in the law and the gospel,” 
Pelagius urged in his own vindication, that *he spoke concerning 
that virginity” of which Paul says: “I have no commandment 
of the Lord.”* Another objection alleged, that Coelestius had 
maintained that * every individual has the faculty of possessing 
all powers and graces, thus annulling that ‘diversity of gifts’ 
which the apostle sets forth." Pelagius, however, answered, that 
* he did not annul the diversity of gifts, but declared that God 
gives to the man who has proved himself worthy to receive them, 
all graces, even as He conferred them on the Apostle Paul.” 
Cnuar. 64. 

These four dogmas, thus connected with the name of Cceles- 
tius, were therefore not approved by the bishops in their 
judgment,in the sense in which Coelestius was said to have 
set them forth, but in the sense which Pelagius gave to 
them in his reply. For they saw clearly enough, that it is 
one thing to lead a sinless life, and another thing to live 
holily and righteously, as Scripture testifies that some lived 
before the coming of Christ. And although the Church here 
on earth is not without spot or wrinkle, she is yet being 
cleansed from every spot and wrinkle by the laver of regenera- 
tion, and in this state the Lord would have her continue. And 
continue she certainly will, for without doubt she shall reign 
without spot or wrinkle in an everlasting felicity. [They saw, 
too,] that the perpetual virginity, which is not commanded, 
is unquestionably a greater thing than the purity of wedded 
life, which is commanded—although virginity is perpetuated in 
many persons, who, notwithstanding, are not without sin. [And 
they, moreover, saw] that all those graces were in fact possessed 
by the Apostle Paul, which he enumerates in a certain pas- 
sage; and yet, for all that, they could quite understand, in 
regard to his having been worthy to receive them, either that 
the merit was not according to his works, but rather, in some 
[mysterious] way, according to [God’s] predestination ; (for the 
apostle says himself: “I am not [worthy, or] meet to be 
called an apostle ;")? or else their attention was not arrested by 

11 Cor. vii. 25. *1 Cor. xy. 5. 


CHAP. LXV.] HEADS OF PELAGIAN ERROR. 429 





the sense which Pelagius gave to the word, as he himself viewed 
it. Such are the points on which the bishops pronounced 
the agreement of Pelagius with the doctrines of godly truth. 

| Cuar. 65. 

Let us now, by a like recapitulation, bestow a little more 
attention on those subjects which the bishops said he re- 
jected and condemned as contrary to the faith; for herein 
especially lies the gist of the whole of that heresy. We will 
entirely pass over the strange terms of adulation which he is 
reported to have put into writing in praise of a certain widow ; 
these expressions he denied having ever inserted in any of his 
writings, or given utterance to, at any time whatever, while 
he anathematised all who held the opinions in question not 
indeed as hereties, but as simpletons. The following are the 
wild thiekets of this heresy, which we are sorry to see shoot- 
ing out buds, nay growing into trees, day by day :—* That 
Adam was made mortal, and must have died whether he had 
sinned or not; that Adam's sin injured only himself, and not 
the human race; that the law no less than the gospel leads 
us to the kingdom [of heaven]; that new-born infants are in 
the same condition as Adam was before he fell; that the 
whole human race does not, on the one hand, die in conse- 
quence of Adam's death and transgression ; nor, on the other 
hand, does the whole human race rise again through the resur- 
rection of Christ; that infants, even if they die unbaptized, 
have eternal life; that rich men, even if baptized, unless they 
renounce and surrender everything, have (whatever good ‘they 
may seem to have done) nothing of it reckoned to them; 
neither can they possess the kingdom of God; that God's 
grace and assistance are not given for single actions, but are 
imparted in the freedom of the will,and in the law and in 
doctrine; that the grace of God is bestowed according to our 
merits, so that grace really lies at the control of a man’s own 
will, as he makes himself worthy or unworthy of it; that men 
cannot be called children of God, unless they have become 
entirely free from sin; that oblivion and ignorance are no 
underlying elements of sin, as they do not happen through the 
will, but occur of necessity; that the will cannot be free, if it 
requires the help of God; inasmuch as every one in the pos- 


430 ON THE PROCEEDINGS OF PELAGIUS.  [CHAP. LXVI. 





session of his proper will has either something to do, or to 
abstain from doing; that our victory comes not from God's 
help, but from our own free will; that from the circumstance 
of [the Apostle] Peter's saying, that ‘ we are partakers of the 
divine nature, ! it must follow that the soul has the power 
of being without sin, just in the way that God Himself has." 
For no less than this have I read in the eleventh chapter of 
the book, which bears no title of its author, but is commonly 
reported to be the work of Ccelestius,—in words to this effect : 
“Now how can anybody,” asks the author, “ become a par- 
taker of the thing from the condition and power of which he 
is distinctly declared to be a stranger?" ^ Accordingly, the 
brethren who prepared these objections understood him to, 
have said that man’s soul and God are of the self-same nature, 
and to have asserted that the soul is a portion of God; for 
they took him to mean that the soul partakes of the same 
condition and power as God. Moreover, in the last of the 
objections laid to his charge there occurs this position: “ That 
pardon is not given to penitents according to the grace and 
mercy of God, but according to their own merits and effort, 
since through repentance they have been worthy of mercy.” 
Now all these dogmas, and the arguments which were ad- 
vanced in support of them, were repudiated and anathematised 
by Pelagius, and his conduct herein was approved of by the 
judges, who accordingly pronounced that he had, by his rejec- 
tion and anathema, condemned the opinions in question as 
contrary to the faith. Let us therefore rejoice — whatever 
may be the circumstances of the case, whether Ccelestius laid 
down these theses or not, or whether Pelagius believed them 
or not—that the injurious principles of this new heresy were 
condemned before that ecclesiastical tribunal; and let us thank 
God for such a result, and proclaim His praises. 

Cuar. 66.— T'he harsh measures of the Pelagians against the holy monks and 

nuns who belonged to Jerome’s charge. 

There is another point [connected with this narrative] which 
concerns the conduct of sundry followers of Pelagius who car- 
ried their support of his cause after these judicial proceedings 
to an incredible extent of perverseness and audacity. They 

12 Pet. i. 4. 


CHAP. LXVI]  PERSECUTING SPIRIT OF PELAGIANS. 431 





are said! to have most cruelly beaten and maltreated the ser- 
vants and handmaidens of the Lord who lived under the care 
of the holy presbyter Jerome, slain his deacon, and burnt his 
monastic houses; whilst he himself, by God's mercy, narrowly 
escaped the violent attacks of these impious assailants in the 
shelter of a well-defended fortress. However, I think it better 
becomes me to say nothing of these matters, but to wait and | 
see what measures our brethren the bishops may deem it their 
duty to adopt concerning such scandalous enormities; for no- 
body can suppose that it is possible for them to pass them over 
without notice. Impious doctrines put forth by persons of this 
character it is no doubt the duty of all Catholies, however 
remote their residence, to oppose and refute, and so to hinder 
all injury from such opinions wheresoever they may happen 
to find their way ; but impious actions it belongs to the dis- 
cipline of the episcopal authority on the spot to control; and 
they must be left for punishment to the bishops of the very 
place or immediate neighbourhood, to be dealt with as pastoral 
diligence and godly severity may suggest. We, therefore, who 
live at so great a distance, are bound to hope that such a stop 
may there be put to proceedings of this kind, that there may 
be no necessity elsewhere of further invoking judicial remedies. 
But what rather befits our personal activity is so to set forth 
the truth, that the minds of all those who have been severely 
wounded by the report, so widely spread everywhere, may be 
healed by the mercy of God following our efforts. With this 
desire, I must now at last terminate this work, which, should 
it succeed, as I hope, in commending itself to your mind, will 
I trust, with the Lord’s blessing, become serviceable to its 
readers—recommended to them, [Aurelius], rather by your 
name than by my own, and through your care and diligence 
receiving a far wider circulation. 


1 [He here refers to a letter (32) of Pope Innocent to John, Bishop of Jerusalem. 
It thus commences: ** Plunder, slaughter, incendiary fire, every atrocity of the ' 
maddest kind have been deplored by the noble and holy virgins Eustochium and 
Paula, as having been perpetrated, at the devil’s instigation, in several places of 
your diocese,” etc. An epistle by the same writer (33) addressed to Jerome, 
begins with these words: ‘‘ The apostle testifies that contention never did any 
good to the Church.”’] 









































BR 65 .A5 E5 1872 

v.4 SMC 

AUGUSTINE, SAINT, BISHOP 
OF HIPPO. 

THE WORKS OF AURELIUS 
AUGUSTINE, BISHOP OF 
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